


Whispers of the Oracle Bones

by crinkledpages



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ancient Chinese Culture and Lore, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Bone Whisperer!Jaemin, M/M, Oracle Bones, Shaman!Renjun, Shamans, Side/Established Doyoung/Taeyong, Slight Angst and Slowburn, use of crystals as sources of energy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-09
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:53:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 35,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28437186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crinkledpages/pseuds/crinkledpages
Summary: Jaemin is a bone whisperer - someone who can read the lives and memories of the dead from their bones. A people who keep to the shadows and the underground.But then he's offered a chance to read the famed oracle bones, to live among the shamans, and in the process of getting to know each of them, he realises that something more brims beyond the surface, and that certain beliefs have to be suspended, and sacrifices made.
Relationships: Huang Ren Jun/Na Jaemin
Comments: 22
Kudos: 58
Collections: NCTV Secret Santa 2020





	Whispers of the Oracle Bones

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aurorasparrowmist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aurorasparrowmist/gifts).



> Hello Wren/Sparrow/Erika, my secret santee! 
> 
> I kind of took your prompt and spun my own (longass) tale, and hopefully you actually like even a smidgen of it. I really did enjoy writing this one, so...a little bit of indulgence on my part.
> 
> Happy Holidays! <3

A ribbon of mist laces through the trees. Over and around the branches and trunks it loops, sailing across his view of the grass-laden path. 

The air here is thick with an aura of an Otherworld. Jaemin had come here to meditate for precisely this reason, and to let the healing crystals absorb as much of the energies from here. He’s always been more than a little over-reliant on them.

He breathes through eight counts before he feels cold on his cheek. It might be a little foolish, but he lets his eyes fly open, quick enough to see the mist twist into a bird. 

It charges toward his head and he jerks back violently. But it only circles him twice, and then it’s a ribbon once more, shivering in the air, waiting. Like a witch’s finger that crooks, that beckons you into her gingerbread home, draws you in even when everything is screaming at you not to. 

His fingers twitch by his sides, itching to touch, to know how a piece of the supernatural kissing his skin would feel like again. 

Jaemin unfolds his legs and stands, but wisely takes a trembling step backwards. Sunlight beats down in strong, bright beams overhead, but the forest seems to darken with each second that passes. 

_“...min. J-jae...min...”_

His name is stuttered out in weak whispers, barely able to be heard above the shivering trees in the wind. 

Jaemin glances back to the ring of symbols stamped onto the trunks of some trees. They look like they have been branded with fire. He lifts a hand to trace its outline, but the black tourmaline bracelet around his wrist burns hotly - a warning.

He drops his hand, but the burn far from recedes. 

His name brushes past his ears again. The slippery shrill texture of the voice sends his skin prickling.

“Fuck.”

The bird springs to life once more, chirping out a high-pitched whistle that pierces his ears and makes his brain hurt. 

To hell with meditation. Jaemin covers his ears with both palms clamped hard against them, heart and legs pounding hard as he cleaves his way out of the clearing and into the street.

It’s been calling to him - this bridge to the other side - and it rattles his Archiver soul.

***

Digging is their game, and bones, their prize. The Bone Whisperers, that is. 

No, they aren’t miners. Or diamond thieves. Just collectors of bones plunged deep into the earth or locked up in niches, columbariums, sanctuaries, urns.

Bones tell the stories of a life less lived, sacrificed, fulfilled, or stolen. And the Bone Collectors - these cloaked figures - collect them all in the dead of night, read the fractures and fissures of the bones, map out their lineage, archive them, and watch the ebb and flow of time. 

Silent observers, all of them. Bystander civilians of the natural world. 

Jaemin has talented hands, and he has the eye and the instinct that is required for the perfect Archiver, the perfect complement to the Collectors and he takes advantage of it. Collectively, they’re known as the Bone Whisperers. 

“We play with the toys that the gods have gifted you” or something like that - he’d heard that somewhere in a movie once, and that had stuck with him. 

A touch of an index finger with digits rubbed coarse and uneven from years of digging, and his mind is privy to a reel of a life. He can trace where they were born, their names and the names of their forefathers, every word ever spun from their lips, every thought ugly or wise. And then he records them in a papyrus scroll, detailing which ones to grind into powder, and which ones to make into beautiful bone sculptures, like the Capuchin ones in Rome. And which ones to wear like a trophy. 

In essence, he is their solution when the other Archivers are stuck. Because most Archivers can only listen to the whispers. Gleaning images are beyond their reach, a pipe dream.

He occupies himself for most of the day in the Archivers’ chambers - white marbled walls inlaid with gold, ivory sandstone flooring, floor-to-ceiling windows to let every bit of sunlight in, with maroon drapes that are drawn closed in the evenings. 

This is his quarters, his office, his haven. Other Archivers roam in and out of course, but he stays in here the most, basking in his bones and crystals. 

“Nana.”

Jaemin looks up from where he’s weaving a necklace out of bones with jaundiced hues, but his hands continue to expertly fashion the brown cord into knots. 

“Looks like it’ll rain today. Shouldn’t be out excavating.” 

“Well, good afternoon to you too,” Lucas huffs. “And yes I know it’s going to rain, I’m a Collector, thank you very much.”

“What do you want?” He picks up an amethyst crystal to twist in between the bones. For calm and tranquility. 

“You shouldn’t leave them out like that with the sunlight coming through,” Lucas returns, moving to spin the deep violet stones in the air. 

“It’s overcast outside. Going to rain, remember? Also, I’m an Archiver, I’m well aware of my craft, thank you very much. Please put those down, they’re extremely unstable when the wrong sort of energy is around them.”

Lucas rolls his eyes but acquiesces. 

“We haven’t really gone out to the town together lately...how about this Saturday? I get the coffees and you get the rice cakes?”

Jaemin finally puts the necklace down. “What are you getting at?” He eyes him suspiciously. 

“Nothing. Just want to spend some quality time with my favourite Archiver. Is that so wrong?”

“Lucas.”

“Jaemin.”

“Wong Yuk-“

“Alright, fine. Fine! The Collectors found something during their recent dig in Henan. They think you should see it.”

There’s an underlying urgency to his voice, something stormy he’s hiding underneath the layer of calm. 

“Henan’s a bit farther north than I thought Hendery was going to. What happened to Hubei?” Jaemin asks, trying to contain the smidgen of interest from creeping into his voice or onto his face. 

Hubei is a well-known archaeological site in China, and he knows how often the Collectors like to travel there to unearth new treasures. 

Jaemin’s been there a couple of times himself, but Henan was different. It was more. Henan was where the bones were particularly exquisite. The province itself held a powerful draw to all Archivers; whole ancient cities had been uncovered there, and Jaemin is sure that many more awaited discovery. 

The bones never lied. In Henan, at the mausoleum temples, Jaemin had listened hard as they whispered tales of where other buried treasure was to be found. People who had buried the treasure with them, people who had given their lives to be entrapped with their masters forever. Jaemin had never felt pulled to stay underground more than then. 

“Hendery had a change of plan. Xiaojun put his hand on a fossil and insisted that there was something more in Henan. So he convinced them to drop everything for that. If it had turned out to be a wild goose chase...”

“But it wasn’t,” Jaemin says, seeing the sparkle in Lucas’ eyes. 

“No, it wasn’t,” he agrees. “It wasn’t at all.”

“Alright.” Jaemin gathers the stray crystals and places them gently back into their wicker baskets, wrapped in soft cloth. He tugs on a hematite ring, and then he looks back to Lucas, who raises a sceptical brow but doesn’t say a word. 

“Let’s go.”

***

Lucas leads them to the basement, which houses most of the Collectors’ private rooms and studies. Jaemin used to have a room here himself, before he moved up the ranks to become an Archiver. He knows his room is still empty, the furniture still arranged in exactly the same way as he’d left it.

“Nana! You made it. Good.” 

“Lucas was very convincing,” Jaemin murmurs, and lets himself be clapped hard on the back. Jaehyun had a wicked backhand, and liked to remind everyone whenever he could.

“As he should be. Come, stand here. The rest will be here soon.”

Jaemin follows Jaehyun’s direction, coming around the enormous oakwood table to take his place next to Jaehyun. He lets his mind wander as they wait, taking in the smooth sandstone walls, a manuscript of the prized Dunhuang map - the oldest Chinese astronomy map from the Shang dynasty - still hanging proudly at the back of the room. It had been a gift from the Chinese Archivers for their help in uncovering the Yin ruins and the oracle bones just over a century ago.

The enormous chamber is outfitted to mimic a war room - the large square oakwood table sits in the centre, with maps and papers fanned out haphazardly detailing past and current excavation projects. Then there’s a black chalkboard framed against the full length of one of the walls, constantly filled with entries upon entries of timelines crossed out or squeezed in, depending on information that crawled in from the Archivers. 

Jaemin picks up a scroll from the table mapping a section of the Great Wall of China, dated 1368. He traces the jagged outlines of the Great Wall’s watchtowers and passes, drawing the brick beacon towers and passes buttressed with wild vines and crumbled stone pillars in his mind to fill in the blanks in the faded ink sketches. 

“Jinshanling?” Jaemin says confidently. 

“Very good,” Jaehyun says with evident pride in his eyes. “How many times have you been there?”

“As many as Kun would allow.”

Jaehyun looks at him sharply before flicking his eyes about the room. Then his gaze is back on Jaemin. “That’s Team Leader Qian to you. Always.”

Jaemin just blows a dramatic puff air out, but his back loses its loftiness and his eyes dim a little. He drops his head forward, letting his fringe fall over his eyes, fidgeting with the hematite ring around his index finger. 

“Hematite?” Jaehyun asks jovially, clearly having moved on. That’s the sort of person he is - a quick temper that would flare in a second, and sputter out just as quickly. 

“Yeah. It seemed like it called for it.”

“It was the right call - ah!” He claps Jaemin on the back again - more out of habit - and brisk walks to the door to welcome the triad of guests.

They’re decked in pure white from head to toe - blinding cotton cloaks and slacks that drape over their hands and bare feet in huge folds to reveal no trace of skin, white silk scarves wrapped tightly about their throats. 

“Jaehyun!” He hisses, grabbing the ends of his cloak as he follows right behind him. “Why are the shamans here?”

“Taeyong, Doyoung, Minhyung. Such a pleasure to welcome you to our home.” Jaehyun greets them warmly, wrestling free from Jaemin’s grip when he steps forward to bow. Despite his warm words, Jaehyun’s eyes reflect distance, body taut with ever-constant suspicion.

Jaemin peers around him, recognising only Taeyong and Doyoung from their occasional dealings with the shamans. His eyes drop to the space between them both, finding their hands predictably clasped together. The yin balancing the yang, Taeyong had told him, before. 

The last one must be a new addition to their ranks. He’s tall, taller than both his superiors, and the perfunctory silver hair worn by all newly inducted shamans seems to shimmer with each tiny movement of his head. It’s potentially distracting. 

“Yoon...Jaehyun.” Taeyong corrects his slip and dips his head slightly, and the other two do the same. 

“Nana, you look well.”

Jaemin nods, twisting his hand in the way that the shamans did as a greeting. “You too.”

“You know our way?” The boy named Minhyung blurts out. 

“He’s travelled with them a couple of times to excavation sites of some of the royal tombs,” Lucas says shortly from the corner, and that seems to startle Minhyung. 

“The royal tombs...King Muryeong?”

“King Jeongjong,” Jaemin says, puffing his chest out a little. 

“But that’s in -”

“North Korea, yes, yes. Can we begin the discussion now, please? It’s nearly dusk.” Doyoung growls irritably, and Jaemin bites his cheek to save everyone present a nasty retort and an awkward evening ahead. 

Doyoung takes a step further into the room, and Taeyong picks up the pace to move quickly around the table too. Jaehyun, on the other hand, struts more than walks. Jaemin takes his cue from him, and stops by the drinks trolley to pour himself a glass of brandy from the decanter. 

“I’ll have one too,” Minhyung says, unexpectedly. 

Jaemin gestures to the decanter, trying to contain a mixture of astonishment and amusement from showing on his face. He pours a mug of hot pu’er tea for Doyoung, and a lime cordial for Taeyong, carrying it over to the table before going back for his own drink. 

“You remember,” Taeyong says, smiling around the rim of his cup. Doyoung only blinks his eyes by way of a thank-you.

“Hard not to, after two weeks.” The brandy is a lovely burn down his throat. He places the glass back on the trolley and twists the hematite around his knuckle again. 

“So. What happened in Henan?”

“Thank you.” Doyoung exhales. “Finally, someone who gets straight to the point.”

He pulls out a scroll from a tube and rolls it out onto the table, the edges curling up. Taeyong moves to place his glass on it to flatten it down, but a strict look from Doyoung has his hand stuttering and retracting. 

Taeyong, the shadow leader, and Doyoung, the real one. 

Jaemin had already known it from all his time spent at their caves and hearing word from their blistering white mansion high up in the icy mountains, so he wonders at how it must look like to the others here. 

“We already know that there are many secrets that were lost through the centuries from lack of written records, a gap that only human bones or artefacts that they’ve touched can help fill. But what if we had something else that could connect us even deeper with the spirits?”

“We don’t deal with spirits in that way,” Xiaojun cuts in brusquely. Jaemin hadn’t seen him enter. 

“What about inscriptions on bone?”

“You mean oracle bones?” Jaemin furrows his brows. Oracle bones were animal bones inscribed with ancient hieroglyphs, the original writings of the Chinese from a time forever elusive. 

They had been used for fortune-telling in ancient China. One of the ways had been pyromancy, a form of divination where questions were inscribed on the bones, and then thrown into the fire. Cracks that formed on the bones would then be used for divination. The stuff of things that excited shamans. 

“Yes.”

“What about it? They’re sacrilegious. To inscribe words onto bones...to taint them like that.” Jaemin wrinkles his nose in disgust, and he sees the rest of his people in the room do the same. 

“Have you ever touched them, then? Those ones from Yinxu? Have you ever visited their ruins in Henan? Or is that Dunhuang map hanging back there a stolen relic?” Minhyung places both palms onto the table, shoulders hiking up as he leans forward in a way that would have been challenging if his tone hadn’t been so gentle and voice pitched so soft. 

“Of course not,” he scoffs back. “We helped to locate the oracle bones. From afar, through the whispers of other bones. _Without_ touching them.”

“If we told you that some of the bones might be human, would that change your mind? No Archiver has stepped foot into Yinxu yet. You could be the first.”

Jaemin now takes the effort to regard him properly. He’s clearly a product of both Doyoung and Taeyong‘s tutelage - gutsy and affable, cautious and manipulative. 

“Let’s say that that is true,” Jaehyun says, and he’s obviously intrigued. Jaemin scowls in annoyance. 

Jaemin can't help but cut in. “If it were, what’s the catch? I don’t believe that you would come here and offer this to us just like that. Why do you even need our help? If they’re human bones, then you should be able to speak with their spirits. And even if you need our help, what’s the price?”

“Nana,” Jaehyun warns. “But yes, why do you need us? And what’s the catch?”

“The spirits within the bones are too chaotic and fragmented. They are not whole. Therefore, it’s almost impossible for us to make out what they’re saying. We’ve tried,” Taeyong says. “And as for the catch...Nana will need to bear our symbol to be let in.” Taeyong almost looks sorry, but Doyoung remains impassive. 

“No,” Lucas hisses. “Absolutely not.”

“I thought you didn’t believe in our practices? If so, it wouldn’t really matter,” Doyoung sneers. 

“You mean for me to be permanently branded with your people’s symbol?” Jaemin asks calmly over Lucas’ and Xiaojun’s rising protests. 

“It’s necessary to be able to enter our mansion. You know that you’ve only ever been to the caves. But gaining entry to our mountains are different.”

Jaemin nods in understanding. He knows this the best out of all of them. “That’s quite a demand.”

“That will never happen,” Lucas spits out again. 

“Then it seems there will be no agreement to be made today,” Doyoung says quietly. His voice is airy, almost as shrill as that ghostly bird in the forest. 

“You must be very desperate.” Jaemin fingers the hematite, letting the words choose themselves without thinking, trusting in the crystal.

Jaehyun flicks his eyes nervously between the two of them but allows Jaemin the dignity to answer on his own without intervention. 

“It’s necessary.” Doyoung tilts his chin up. 

“Maybe. But still desperate nonetheless.”

“So are you saying no?” Minhyung whispers, but it’s said with such irritating caution, and without any hardness.

“I’m saying that there has to be a compromise. If I am to take your brand, then you have to promise something in return. The bones stay with us. They’re not to be used for your regular fortune-telling after we have recorded their stories for you. Precious bones such as these shouldn’t be used for monetary gain, let alone even be considered.”

Surprisingly, it’s Taeyong’s face that hardens. “The bones are our right -”

Doyoung holds up a palm. “Nana. You know that that is a tall order.”

“So is asking a Whisperer to wear a shaman’s brand.”

“These are not just any bones.”

“No,” Jaemin agrees. “They aren’t.”

“Something else, then.” Jaehyun finally steps in. “Nana will help you. But the party must remain in Yinxu. No travelling to your mountains. A neutral ground.”

Doyoung frowns. Jaehyun knows how much they dislike practicing their rituals on non-sacred ground. 

“We will...consider it.” But his face is still stiff and stubborn. 

Jaemin nods. “We will consider this option if you do.”

“Nana, you can’t. It’s wicked. It’s black magic. It’s not natural.” Lucas grabs his wrist and squeezes it hard. “Nana, don’t.”

Jaemin turns away and focuses on looking solely at the shamans. 

“I understand that only Nana is meant to go along?” Jaehyun asks, as calm as the East Sea on the windiest of days. Jaemin thinks that both Lucas and Xiaojun could take a leaf out of his book. 

“That is correct,” Doyoung affirms. “To Yinxu to have him read the bones. Of course, our intended course of action was to travel home to the Wolseongbong mountains after.”

Ah yes, Wolseongbong, or Moon City Peak, the highest mountain in South Chungcheong, also the home of King Muryeong’s tomb. No wonder Minhyung had asked. 

“Will Taeil be there?”

“Why?” 

“Just tell me.”

“Yes, he’s been put down as one of the personnel accompanying us to Yinxu.”

Jaemin loosens his shoulders, and the stone in his stomach eases up a little. 

“Whispers from regular bones already require quite an effort for Archivers to listen to. But I hear that you have knowledge of the oracle script?” It’s a question that already has its own answer. 

It was true that the whispers were foreign sometimes, even to Archivers who were strong enough to lose themselves to the whispers and yet snap back to their own person instantly. 

“Yes, I do. But you already knew that.” Jaemin says brusquely. “I'd like some time to think about it. Three days, and then I’ll let you know my decision.”

Doyoung smiles, prematurely victorious, but Jaemin can’t exactly blame him.

Doyoung taps Taeyong on the back of his hand, and he nods, producing a necklace of white bone shaped like an uneven triangle from within the folds of his sleeves. 

“A little peek, so to speak, as a gesture of faith.”

Jaemin can’t help the little swallow his throat makes. To have an actual oracle bone right before his eyes…

Taeyong waves his hand, beckoning him to him encouragingly. 

Jaemin’s hand shakes, and he looks back at his mentor. Jaehyun just nods and smiles reassuringly. 

Jaemin closes his eyes and sucks in a deep breath. He’s doing this. He’s actually going to touch an oracle bone. He holds out a trembling hand. 

When Taeyong places it in his palm, Jaemin knows he had been right to have followed his instinct to wear the hematite. Nothing would have prepared him for the onslaught of images slamming into his head, a cacophony of voices screeching in varying decibels in his head.

He gasps but clamps his fingers around the bone, forgetting his repulsion of touching it as he summons the energy of the stone to help with his concentration.

Images flit past in a flurry, distorted and fuzzy. He digs his thumb into the hematite. 

“A woman...” he mutters. “Concubine during...the Shang dynasty. Ling?”

“Well done,” Doyoung says, whisking the necklace out of his hand just as quickly as it had been placed there. From the quick glance that passes between him and Taeyong, they’d expected this. 

A part of Jaemin smarts at having been manipulated into touching the bone, and the other part still craves to have it in his hand once more. 

“There’s more, at Yinxu. Much, much more.”

“How did you even know that there were human bones at Yinxu?” Jaehyun steps a bit closer, fascinated enough to lean towards the necklace dangling between Doyoung’s fingers, but still repressed enough by their staunch beliefs to not touch. 

“Why, the spirits told us, of course.” 

Minhyung smirks and lets out a soft guffaw. Jaemin is on the edge of smiling too, despite the scandalised expressions of every other Archiver and Collector alike. Save for Jaehyun, perhaps, who’s barely hiding his own grin. 

“Well then. We shall speak again after three suns have risen and set. Thank you for travelling all the way here. It must have been a tiring journey.” Jaehyun bows fully, always the picture-perfect host. 

“And thank you, for listening with an open mind.” Taeyong performs a similar bow, followed by Doyoung and Minhyung. 

Jaemin kisses his right wrist, placing a fist to his heart and then crisscrossing his hands to both his shoulders.

This time, Minhyung only watches on quietly, like he’s come to understand that Jaemin isn’t like any other Archiver and will never behave as such. 

Doyoung mirrors the farewell greeting and then curls his fingers into Taeyong’s palm once more. 

Minhyung performs the farewell greeting too, but then extends a fist to Jaemin with a wink, which Jaemin meets midway with a matching grin sliding onto his lips.

When they leave, it’s Jaehyun who corners him first, well before Xiaojun or Lucas can. 

“I hope I don’t have to tell you how to behave, with or without Taeil around.”

Jaemin cranes his head back skyward so that he doesn’t have to see the beginnings of admonishment gather like dark clouds in his eyes.

“Don’t give them a reason to keep the bones to themselves, Nana.”

“You’re awfully invested, for someone who daren’t touch it.”

“They hold a lot of information, much too precious to let slip from our fingers. An entire period in ancient China that historians would not have been able to write about…I think it’s worth sacrificing our faith a little, don’t you?”

Jaemin shrugs. He’s already touched it, so there’s hardly any opposing argument to give. 

“Choose wisely, Nana. For us.”

Jaemin sighs but dips his head quickly such that it comes off as more of a flippant nod, but it does satisfy Jaehyun. 

When Jaehyun leaves, Lucas and Xiaojun converge on him. 

“What the fuck, Nana. You touched a fucking oracle bone.” Xiaojun pushes at his shoulder, hard. 

“Hmm.” He brings his palms up to examine them. “My fingers aren’t turning green, or falling off. Maybe the stories are false, after all.”

“This isn’t funny, Nana. We don’t touch them. Ever. I can’t believe Jaehyun actually let you! It’s probably because Qian isn’t around to keep him in check. I’ll fucking report him, I swear.”

“Lucas, no.” He shoots out a hand to grab his arm. “I touched them myself. If anything, I should be the one to blame.”

“About that. You’re not even sorry about touching them. Or about being branded?! And I thought you were the most Archiver-like out of all of us.”

“But human oracle bones, Lucas. _Human_. We could learn so much.” _And we would be the first_.

“You’re actually considering this,” he whispers. 

Jaemin bites the inside of his cheek. He had already taken the first, difficult leap; had touched the bones. 

“If you go, I’ll report Jaehyun.” The veins in his neck bulge with anger and possibly shock. “I will, Nana, I will.”

Jaemin takes a step towards him, their noses almost touching. 

“Then do it. I’ll still always be the best Collector there ever was, and I’ll be the best goddamned Archiver after this. And all you would have achieved would have been to slow us down by decades.”

“Na. Jae. Min.” His hands tremble by his sides, clenched into fists. If Lucas were to sock him, he’d come away with a broken nose for sure. 

“Nana. There isn’t a Na Jaemin. Not anymore.” He bumps his forehead against Lucas’ just once. “Just like how there isn’t a Wong Yukhei, or a Xiao Dejun. The best Bone Whisperers always know what to sacrifice, and when.”

He drops his hand from around Lucas’ arm and takes a step back. “And you clearly haven’t learned that yet.”

He’s hit them in the worst place he knows how, and all three of them know it. Jaemin makes for the door, brushing past the space between them, and they let him, because they’re too stupefied to move or speak. He’ll get his comeuppance when he gets back, but in this moment, he can’t bring himself to care. 

He stops short at his subconscious slip. When he gets back. Well.

When he’s reached the grand stairwell overlooking the main hall, there’s a crowd forming around the entourage of departing shamans, tittering and whispering, riveted. 

It’s an effort to not stare at the ease with which they weave through them, and how they appear to glow, like ghosts or beings from a different plane. But he manages as best as he can, gripping the clear quartz necklace that he always wears around his neck and tucks safely under his collar - a source of clarity and comfort.

 _Nana_ , he repeats in his head. _NanaNanaNana._

***

Seoul. To Yinxu. To Wolseongbong?

Jaemin moves the marker to each landmark on the map, connecting them in a mismatched triangle. Like the shape of that oracle bone. 

“Having second thoughts?” Jaehyun comes up from behind. He’s in a more casual garb of a white tee and jeans than the usual Archiver uniform of midnight blue cloaks over a linen shirt and pants of the same blue hue. In the summer, they were allowed rayon tank tops that cinched at his waist, and, thank the heavens, the option to wear shorts that ended just above the knees. 

“Never. You?”

“Does it look like I’m the one going?”

“I meant, won’t you get into trouble with the Council for authorising this?”

“Nana. Some sacrifices are worth it. I thought I taught you that.” He grins, and Jaemin thinks how you never really know anyone fully, not really.

“You did. But sometimes the sacrifices can be our ruin, even with the best of intentions.”

Jaehyun chuckles, slipping an arm around his neck. “Did Qian teach you that? He’s a stickler through and through. Seems like I can’t catch a break for a second,” he gripes good-naturedly. 

“Jaehyun...”

“I’m not rebelling, Nana. I’m not. I won’t ever so much as touch the bones, let alone visit Yinxu. But our duty as Archivers is to document, and learn and write the histories of a people who never had their voices heard. If it means our most talented member needs to go against our faith for a little while, then so be it. You must feel that way too, or you wouldn’t have agreed either.”

Jaemin twirls the clear quartz pendant around his neck, seeking guidance and an answer that he doesn’t particularly want to give from his own reasoning. Then he can blame someone or something else for his decisions. 

“Maybe. I don’t know. I don’t want to think or talk about Whisperer faith or morality right now.”

Jaehyun takes the plastic marker from his hand and pins it onto Wolseongbong decisively. 

“Then we won’t. We’ll talk about the shamans and exactly how you’re going to conduct yourself when you’re there."

"What if I can't do it? What if there's all this talk and I'm just a fraud?" Jaemin is so fearful of bringing shame to the Whisperers, and perhaps more importantly, disappointing Jaehyun.

Jaehyun puts his hands on either of Jaemin's shoulders. "Nana, you're just about the best Whisperer in the country, probably even in East Asia. Even if there are Archivers in China who have the Henan language down pat, I can bet that there is no one else who is as gifted a reader as you are." He looks like he wants to say something else, like something secret on the tip of his tongue, but it passes. 

"And about Wolseongbong," he adds. "I won’t put it past them to end up going back there, and it would be remiss of me not to school you in the blueprint and their ways. And also, about that brand.”

He grips Jaemin’s chin and jerks his head up. “I’ll be damned if I let them lay a hand on my best Archiver. No brand. Even if you do end up at the mountains. I’ll make sure of it.”

“But how...”

“Do you trust me, Jaemin? I’m asking you, just Jaemin, as me, just Jaehyun. Do you? As your mentor and friend?”

Jaemin’s lips quiver. The more he looks into Jaehyun’s eyes, the more he doesn’t want to leave. How can he abandon him to face Qian’s wrath, or the Council’s punishment? Because they would punish him, wouldn't they? They would find a way. 

Because some buttons you just don’t push. But Jaemin would anyway. He would still go to Wolseongbong, if Jaehyun fought for him. Because deep down, Jaemin wants to go so very badly, and Jaehyun bloody well knows it. 

“I trust you to want the best for me. But I don’t trust you to do the same for yourself.” 

Jaehyun smiles, and it’s a little watery. “You just focus on that first part, Nana. Just that part, and that’ll be all that matters.”

Jaemin’s always understood Jaehyun and his proclivities to achieve his goals by wayward means. He used to consider himself a stickler, but then that wouldn’t explain how he’d moved from Collector to Archiver as quickly as he had. Jaehyun had pulled many strings to make it happen, that he knows. And it was always Jaehyun who saw opportunities where there were seemingly none. 

So Jaemin taps the marker, and clears his throat. “Then let’s talk about Wolseongbong.”

***

The saving grace is that they visit Henan in the throes of summer. 

If it had been the dead of winter, or even in mid-Autumn, it would have been a frightful thing, to speak with the dead in the cold and dark. Speaking with them usually left Archivers drained of energy, and coming from the tunnels into the sunlight could soothe it, like a blissfully warm balm that seeped deep into the soul. 

This is why Whisperers always favour the hot rays of the sun. 

Jaemin’s head is bared to the blinding beams, unlike the gaggle of shamans with their heads wrapped in white cloaks that hang low over their eyes. 

It’s also easier to hear the whispers, without his head and ears all blanketed over with cloth. 

“Can you hear them?” Taeil’s gentle presence and voice break through his thoughts like a smooth pebble skipping past a river’s surface and bouncing up again. 

It’s more than reassuring that Taeil is here with him. In fact, Jaemin is sure half his decision to come was based on Taeil being here. 

“Yes. They’re calling me to them.” 

“Well. I won’t deny it. I’ve always wanted to know what it was like, even if it was just the one time.” He cocks his head to the side, as if sticking an ear out might help him to hear. 

Jaemin laughs and thumps his upper arm playfully. ”If you have the right Archiver, you can.”

“Like a telepath, right? But there are none in South Korea.” 

Jaemin nods, unsurprised at Taeil’s knowledge. He’s as well-versed in their practices and history as Jaemin was of theirs, probably even more so. 

“Just the one in Russia, and one in Tibet. Maybe one or two in the Americas, but they’re quite elusive and private. It’s hard to really know for certain, across the Pacific.”

“So I’ve heard.” Taeil pulls out a map of the ruins which has all sorts of scribbles in his neat penmanship. There are some animal symbols printed on it that he knows don’t belong to the hieroglyphs of the oracle bones. 

“Does that map tell us which ones are human and which ones are ox or turtle shells?”

“Yup. We mapped it out ourselves.”

“What are those symbols?” He squints at one, making out a fish, and maybe a seahorse. Or a scorpion. A beetle?

“Our tribes, and sometimes, our spirit animals. We placed our symbol there to show which house helped locate which batch of bones. Haven’t you come across them before?”

Jaemin shakes his head. 

“All shamans use their abilities to connect the mortal world and the spirit world. To be the bridge between the two. Sometimes we need to be mortal, and sometimes we need to be something other. Not immortal, but temporarily inhuman.”

“Like a ghost?”

Taeil’s eyes look up and sideways, expression thoughtful and considering. “Yes, you could say that. We use them to cross into the spiritual realm. It can be unconscious, at times, especially when we’re asleep and our minds wander. We sometimes wander into the spirit realm in the animal form that we favour.”

“Ah.” Jaemin doesn’t mention the bird in the forest. He doesn’t want Taeil to ask him any more questions, and he doesn’t particularly feel like addressing theories about why he’s seeing ghost-birds. “What’s yours?”

“A greyhound.”

“A hunting dog? That sort of suits you. It’s cool.” Intelligent, even-tempered. Jaemin can think of no other shaman who is as assertive yet carries such gentleness within him than him. 

“You think so?”

“Hey. I can find things about shamans cool even if I don’t agree with a lot of your practices.”

Taeil laughs. “Of course you can. Like how I find your crystal-wearing thing cool.”

Jaemin covers the malachite bracelet around his wrist out of habit. “It’s not a Whisperer thing. It’s just. My thing.”

Taeil pries his wrist slowly from his side to inspect it. “Actually, aren’t crystals very un-Whisperer-like? In fact, I would say they could be more a shaman thing.”

“They help me organise my thoughts and emotions. I don’t see how that’s a shaman thing.” He pulls his wrist back and slides his sleeve over to hide it. He’s wearing his midnight blue Archiver robes as the sole representative of the Whisperers. 

“Alright.” Taeil pulls his white cloak over his head and switches back to a topic more comfortable, like the order of the day. “Shall we? We can skip the other exhibition halls and go straight to the oracle one.”

“Shouldn’t we wait for Doyoung and Taeyong?”

Taeil shakes his head with a soft smile. “You have an elder shaman as a chaperone. They trust me with you. Or trust you to keep yourself in check with me.”

Jaemin grins, and his mood lightens considerably. “Great. But let’s not skip the other halls. There could be other bones worth hearing. I hear there are some slaves who were buried here as well. I want to listen to them.”

He pulls his hood up and over his head, mirroring Taeil. He lets Taeil guide them, and the guards at the entrance wave them past without asking to see a ticket when Taeil rolls his sleeve up to his forearms to reveal the symbol of the shamans, the mark resting above the elbow on raised skin - a mountain with three peaks that also looks like a crown, and ironically enough, is also the oracle bone script for the word mountain.

“Did it hurt?” 

Taeil strokes the area where his mark rests beneath the folds of his cloak. “Yes. But we all grow up being taught that receiving the mark is part of our induction to finally becoming a full-fledged shaman. Like purification through fire. So we expect the pain. Look forward to it, even.”

“Has there ever been anyone who refused?” He muses. 

“No.” Taeil says, and even he sounds surprised at his own answer. “In actual fact, no. It’s a rite of passage. Our years of training prepare us for that day, and honestly, the training is a lot worse than a hot metal rod being pressed into your skin for a couple of seconds. Opening your mind to the spirits, getting the right answers without letting them trick you, interpreting signs correctly - those are harder than any physical pain.”

Jaemin nods slowly. “I never thought of it that way before. But I suppose you’re right.”

In a way, they weren’t so different from the Archivers, who expended a lot of mental strength to tap into the whispers and listen and record them with painstaking accuracy. But Jaemin doesn’t voice it, because he doesn’t want to admit out loud how similar they could be. 

“Here, the royal palaces.” Jaemin points out rather excitedly. “Just a pit stop here. Then we’ll head to the oracle stele gallery and the bone pit.” 

Taeil chuckles under his breath and shakes his head as he follows after him. 

They spend only about a half-hour in there, because Jaemin is mindful of the time he will need to listen to the oracle bones. 

When they arrive at the bone pit, Doyoung is already waiting for them, his own shaman cloak fastened securely about his throat with a brooch. The brooch is carved in the shape of the oracle bone script for tiger, a symbol of the shamans.

“I see you took a little detour.”

“I had to. When else would I be given the chance to come here?”

Doyoung laughs, but there’s an edge to it. Like he’s serious. “If you took the brand, you could come here anytime.” 

Jaemin forces himself to laugh too. “Well, wouldn’t that be one for the books. But let’s not waste anymore time, and do what we came here to do.”

Doyoung straightens up at the mention of business. “The human bones are in this section.” He moves towards the right, with Taeil turning on his heels to follow. 

“ _I’ll_ be the judge of that. You needed a bone whisperer, so let me do my job.”

He’s pleased to see a vein protrude from Doyoung’s neck, lips pursed as if swallowing down a nasty comeback. 

He closes his eyes, releases his mind to the barrage of whispers clawing through his lowered walls. 

“This way.” He gestures to the left wing. And the shamans are helpless but to follow.

***

“They’re just looking for someone to listen to them. That’s all they really ask for.”

Jaemin murmurs as he puts down a bone and picks up another too hold in the palm of his hand. Each bone has told him something new and different, holds so much beautiful memories, and he wants to speak to each one all over again. 

But he can’t, of course. 

Doyoung watches on, sharp eyes refusing to miss even a second of the exchange. He’s not stopped pitting question after question at Jaemin since they’d begun, testing his knowledge and his skillset. 

_“Who does this person say they are? What century did they live in? Who was their king then? How did they die?”_

If Jaemin hadn’t wanted this so badly, he’d have punched his mouth already. 

“We’re allowed to take a couple of them out of here, aren’t we?”

Doyoung nods, arms crossed over his chest. “Yes. We can take a couple hundred. We’ve got a large guesthouse in Beijing where one of our land bases is. That’s where we’ll be stationed while you analyse and read the bones.”

Lying bastards. Jaehyun had anticipated as much. “I thought the agreement was to stay here, in Anyang.”

“The agreement was not to go back to Wolseongbong, which we aren’t, thanks to you and Jaehyun. But you don’t really think we’d be allowed to set up camp in a public museum, do you? Besides, we’ll have access to more resources in Beijing. Resources that you might be grateful for as well.”

Jaemin snorts. “Hah, please. You just found a loophole in our agreement. But fine, if we go north, Taeil comes with us too.”

Doyoung opens his mouth and closes it. “I don’t think -”

“I’ll come,” Taeil cuts in. “And I’m happy to stay for as long as Nana needs to. I’m not needed back in Wolseongbong for the time being anyway.”

Doyoung frowns, looking at Taeil for a chink in his armour, but already knowing he’s lost this one. “Fine. Gather the bones you want. I’ll go see if Taeyong is around. We leave in fifteen minutes.”

He stalks out, and Jaemin realises his thumb has cut into his malachite bracelet from gripping its sharp edges too hard, drawing a thin line of blood. 

“Thank you,” he says to Taeil, throwing both arms around his back. “Sorry for putting you in that position. I was so worried that you’d say no.”

Taeil returns the hug. “You had nothing to worry about. I told you before at Kaesong, that I would always stand by you if I could as long as it didn’t jeopardise my people. This is me keeping to it.”

Jaemin presses his face briefly into Taeil’s neck, finding comfort in his warmth. “Thank you.”

“I’m not your enemy, Nana. Remember that, and my promise.”

He nods and steps away.

“Shall we?” 

Taeil nods too. “Show me which ones and we’ll split up to collect them. Doyoung is a real stickler for time.”

***

Knock once or twice, and you get a grim-faced man who answers. Knock thirteen times, and a boy with his face painted in red, blue and yellow stripes across his left cheek will answer. Or so they say from the scrolls of poems Jaemin has read about shamans. 

Doyoung raps his fist in thirteen rapid thumps, and a boy with a cheeky grin peeks his head around the door. His face is painted white on the right side, and a blue sun on the other. Well. 

“Donghyuck.” Doyoung greets. “Where’s Taeyong?”

Taeyong hadn’t gone to Yinxu after all, citing other business in Beijing that needed attending to. Doyoung had been in a considerably worse mood the entire ride back.

“Out. Said he’ll be back in a couple of hours after collecting some medicine. Is this the Archiver?” Donghyuck sticks a hand out. “Hello. Pleasure to meet you. Taeil mentioned that you’ve been to our caves in Gwangju?”

Jaemin reaches out for his hand, but it’s quickly swatted away by Doyoung. “Stop fooling around and let us in at once.”

“Whatever.” His mouth droops sulkily but he makes way for the party of tired travellers, bowing low when Doyoung passes him. 

When they’re past the door, Doyoung turns to Jaemin. “He’s a mind-reader, but he can only read you if he makes skin-to-skin contact. You need to watch yourself here, Whisperer.”

Jaemin feels a knot build in his throat. “Uh. Right.” Jaemin had known that some shamans had additional abilities, like Taeyong and Doyoung, but hadn’t really given much thought to meeting more here. He thinks about asking Taeil for a pair of gloves. Gloves in the summer. What Lucas would think if he saw him. 

Doyoung rolls his eyes, likely at his naivety. “Taeil, I’m assigning Jeno to be his day-to-day tour guide. Of course, you’re free to take over whenever you wish. Jeno can handle the easy stuff like showing him around. You can chaperone when it comes to the bones.”

Jaemin almost laughs at how Doyoung manages to make it sound like it had been his idea to keep Taeil around, but Taeil merely dips his head politely. 

“Jeno is a good choice. Thank you, Doyoung. I’ll come by your rooms later.”

Doyoung grunts, unbuckling his cloak and tossing it to Donghyuck to take. “Come by at midnight.”

Then he’s sweeping away, the ends of his white scarf flying behind him. Jaemin rolls his eyes. 

“Great hospitality. So, where are my rooms?”

***

Jaemin isn’t sure that he’ll survive Beijing, or living amongst shamans, on hindsight. 

Shamans lived and breathed by the moon and her phases. That already wrings Jaemin wrong, because the Archivers are all about sunlight. 

Even with Jaehyun’s added instruction about the way of the shamans, it’s harder to wrap his head around this being his home for the next few weeks, or months, now that he’s actually explored his new home in the flesh.

When their wagon had pulled up to the top of a valley, Jaemin had let out a shaky breath. He’d never been this high up from the ground, and this guesthouse stood at a dizzying 1,000 feet. 

“988 feet, if we’re being exact,” Taeil had said with pride as they had hopped off the wagon. “Not as high as Wolseongbong, which stands at a grand 2,966 feet, but it’s at a comfortable enough altitude to feel like home.”

Jaemin supposes he should have been sobbing in relief. 

His assigned guide for the duration of the trip - Lee Jeno - is a loquacious boy of the same age, with eyes that crinkle up at the corners and a button nose that scrunches into a bobtail when he smiles.

Their first exchange had been a hug and hellos in Chinese (Jeno had mistakenly and presumptuously pegged him as Chinese since Doyoung had mentioned that the Archiver could understand the whisperings at Henan), and then a series of awkward stumbling sentences before Jaemin had taken pity on him and introduced himself in perfect Korean.

Of course, he’d made sure to drag it out for at least five minutes first. 

After those five minutes, Jaemin understands why Doyoung paired them together. Jeno is a ball of sunshine, a welcome reprieve from those moon-addled mystics. Maybe Doyoung had a heart, after all.

“So you’ll be here for two months?” Jeno bounces on his toes as he leads Jaemin to his rooms. He’s wearing a looser version of the shaman garb, a long-sleeved silk shirt and long silk pants that flow and balloon as he swings his arms and bounces on his heels.

“It depends on the bones.”

“What do you mean? Like how many you have to listen to and transcribe?”

“That, and how much they have to say. It takes a while to sort out the garble and the ones of significance. You also have to ask a lot of questions before you get the answers you want. Think of it like you’re squeezing blood from stone, except well, it’s bone.”

Jeno cackles, and Jaemin smiles, pleased.

“Oh! Like with ouija boards?”

 _“God, no._ We are most certainly not like paranormal hunters or scammers running a seance asking questions about dead people or getting lottery numbers from the dead. This is about recording important moments in history.” He says the last sentence almost pompously. 

Jeno lifts his palms up apologetically. “Okay, okay. Not ghost whisperers. Just bone whisperers. Right. Got it.”

“Yes. Thank you.” Jaemin sniffs. The walk to their rooms isn’t that far, but the journey from the plane ride to Shanghai, then hopping on and off intercity trains, and then a precarious donkey wagon up the narrow passage to a secluded valley in the capital had been enough to leave him hagged, dust-crusted, and bone-weary.

“Are you really upset? I’m sorry.”

Jaemin coughs out a laugh from his dry throat, and it’s painful. “No, no, I’m not. I’m just really tired. But you’re great. You’re really great, Jeno.”

Jeno beams. “Here’s your room! It’s just a few doors down from mine, and Taeil’s is on the same floor too. You should come down at dinner and meet everyone. We don’t bite, it’s just Doyoung.”

Jaemin musters a grin even though his face feels numb and lifeless. “Thanks, but I think I’ll sleep through dinner. I’m quite flat-out.” 

“Okay. How about I bring up some food for you? Just some fruit and flower tea? Or would you like rice and kimchi and Korean pancakes?”

Jaemin’s stomach grumbles at the mention of Korean food.

Jeno laughs. “Okay, Korean food it is. I’ll get a plate for you.”

“Thanks.” Jaemin pushes the doors open, closing it behind him with a gentle click. 

His rooms are far larger than his bedroom back home in Seoul, and almost as large as the Archiver chambers where they studied the bones and where he made his accessories.

Jaehyun had told him that most of the rooms in Wolseongbong had ceilings and walls resembling the structure of mountainous caverns - odd jagged ridges that seemed to be made of real limestone rocks. The floor was as cold as ice no matter the time of day, so they never removed their shoes, or if they did, it was to slip into furry pairs of boots to fend off the cold.

“It’s like as if they simply retained the natural environment, and moulded it to make it liveable for them,” Jaehyun had said. “And why they’re constantly wrapped up like mummies from neck to toe.”

But here in Beijing, their guesthouse bears no similarity to a mountain. The walls in his room are a natural stone, washed in grey, with silver fixtures for furniture. His bed frame is a dark wood with soft white cotton sheets. 

He notices that the rooms on the top three floors are designed like this, while the two lowest floors are fully outfitted with tatami mats and sliding doors, like a Japanese ryokan. 

He wonders whether the shamans had some hand in this odd construction, as if they’d intruded and only been allowed to stamp their mark on half the property. Lucky for Jaemin, he’s housed on the third floor, so he gets the thick walls and a proper door that locks.

He runs himself a hot bath and scrubs out all the dirt and grime accumulated from Seoul to Henan to Beijing until his face is pink and rubbed raw. 

The shampoos and soap smell like something used in hotels - the type that leaves the skin feeling too squeaky clean. He wishes he’d packed at least one bar of lavender soap now. But practicality had won out - he’d needed more space in his bag for his notebooks and scrolls on the oracle bone script.

When he’s all washed up, he reaches for a comb to tame the unruly tangles, but then he finds that the mirror is all fogged up from the shower, so it’s useless to part his fringe neatly. 

The mirror is long, stretching quite unnecessarily the entire length of the wall of the bathroom. Whoever had fixed this up had extremely gaudy taste. 

There’s nothing particularly interesting about the mirror - no designs or embossed stars or a sprig of flowers or the like to give it character, or indicate that it’s part of a guesthouse in Beijing. 

And yet, he finds himself scooting forward until his forehead is a mere few inches from the mirror - close enough for his breath to add its own cloud of fog. Jaemin lifts a finger, and begins to draw.

A tunnel. A mountain with three peaks that could be mistaken for the famed Egyptian pyramids, or a crown. A mound of trees. A bird. Jaemin stops at the last one, realising that he’s drawn them all in oracle bone script. He stares at his own handiwork, eyes taking in the watery outlines that are beginning to dissipate into water droplets on the mirror from the condensation. 

He can’t take his eyes off the bird. It’s shaped like a toucan, its beak pointing to the West, exactly the direction it would be turning to if looking from Seoul to Beijing. He shudders. 

The more his eyes zero in, the more the bird seems to slowly shimmer to life. Its beak wracks with a slight tremor, and when it opens, Jaemin almost expects to hear a caw that sounds like his name. 

He yells, lunging forward to shut it up, _shut it up!_ , wiping every drawing off with a screech of his palm meeting the slippery mirror.

When he’s done, his chest is heaving, sweat trickling down his back, so much so that he almost feels like he needs to shower again. 

“Fuck this,” he murmurs, towelling off and reaching for his night clothes - a midnight blue singlet and matching drawstring pants. Also another set of Archiver uniforms.

He sees the plate of hot food that Jeno’s kindly brought up and rested on the dressing table, but his stomach is a ball of nerves now, and turns and roils wildly at the smell of the kimchi. Ugh. Foregoing any dinner, he pours himself a glass of water instead and climbs into the huge bed. 

When Jaemin draws the covers up to his chin and turns out the light, he’s grateful that he dreams of nothing.

***

Dawn breaks quietly over the horizon. Jaemin finds that the Beijing sun is no different than Seoul’s. He still wakes immediately when the sun is just peering over the valley, just as attuned here as when he’s across the other side of the Yellow Sea. 

“Augh.” He rubs his hands up and down his face, willing himself back to sleep. But his body is already whirring with anxiety for the day ahead, and he can’t throw a spanner in the works.

He rolls out of bed, washing up quickly and pulling on his casual summer Archiver garb - a blue tank and a windbreaker, and linen trousers - to head down to breakfast. He remembers Jeno mentioning that the kitchens were open from 6am.

There’s quite a hive of activity at 7am, which surprises Jaemin. He’d thought they were all nocturnal creatures. 

“Nana! Good morning!” Jeno calls from the buffet spread, which is a long wooden table of fresh fruits, baskets of steamed _mantou_ (Chinese wheat flour buns), long sticks of fried dough, pitchers of soy milk, millet porridge - all very traditional Beijing fare. 

Jaemin fills his bowl with porridge and looks around for sesame oil, which he thankfully locates at the condiments corner. He pours himself a glass of soy milk and takes a bowl of porridge and heads to Jeno’s table, feeling considerably relieved at seeing a friendly face first thing in the morning. 

“You’re awfully chirpy.” He sits down and eyes the steaming cup of coffee nursed between his palms.

“Whoa, where’d you get that from? I only saw soy milk back there.” 

“Kitchen aunties.” He smirks. “Gotta put in a special request because they usually prep the coffee for the 8am breakfast crowd.”

“There’s a difference between the 7am and 8am breakfast crowd?”

Jaemin’s eyes traverse the expanse of the dining room, taking in all the patrons, as if trying to ascertain any startling distinctions by pure sight. 

“8am is for the actual paying guests. Anytime before is for the shamans. We try to blend into the crowds, look less conspicuous in broad daylight.”

Jaemin cocks a brow at Jeno’s attire, and how those snowy-white clothes are far from inconspicuous to any layman. 

“I think you need a serious review on your uniforms if you really want to blend in.” 

Jeno blushes hotly. “We wear these with pride.”

“Of course you do. But if half the guesthouse is dressed in all white, it’s not hard to wonder if this is a hiding place for a cult or if this is a funeral parlour by night.”

Jeno digs his spoon into his porridge and shovels a mouthful roughly into his mouth. “Shut up, Nana,” he grumbles around the spoon. 

Jaemin laughs, and slurps a bite of the now lukewarm porridge. “Okay, okay, I’ll stop teasing. So are the top three floors of the guesthouse for shamans only? And the bottom two for regular guests? I noticed that the Japanese ryokan decor only extended to the first two floors.”

Jeno nods. “Yeah, that’s exactly right. We had the upper floors reconstructed to natural stonewalls to make us feel more at home, even when we aren’t in the mountains.”

“Yeah, you’re just missing some stalactites on the ceiling.” Jaemin slots in, because he just can’t help himself. 

A dribble of porridge finds its way onto Jaemin’s nose, and he yells in affront. “Lee Jeno!” 

“You’re really rude,” Jeno sniffs. “I’m not going to apologise for that.”

“Wasn’t expecting you to.” Jaemin hums with good grace as he wipes off the glob of rice. “So, anyone here I should look out for?”

“Like, avoid?” Jeno purses his lips. “I guess Doyoung? The rest are pretty much alright. We’re not unfriendly or terrible, you know. There’s no great divide between Archiver or shaman, despite what Doyoung likes to project.”

“So just Doyoung?” Jaemin scoffs. “I can handle him just fine.”

There’s a pained smile, as if he’s struggling to understand how Jaemin can be as nonchalant when it comes to his cantankerous, stoic leader. 

“Um, good for you? Well there really isn’t anyone else half as scary, so I think you’re good.”

Jaemin pushes his lips into the shape of a fish and lolls his head onto his palm. “Hmm. How about any rising stars? I hear that there are a couple in Wolseongbong, but there are so many mountain bases in South Korea, so I haven’t really been keeping track.”

“Well, there’s Mark. He’s like, the shining trophy boy who does no wrong. He’s absolutely amazing. There’s no one else here who would be right to succeed Doyoung as head shaman except for him.” Jeno sighs dreamily into his porridge.

“His name is Mark? So he’s not Asian?”

“It’s his English name,” Jeno waves a flippant hand at him, as if it’s unimportant news that he should be grateful to be told nonetheless.

“Right. Okay. So what’s his real name?”

Jeno squeals. “Oh fuck, it’s him!”

Jaemin follows where Jeno points at, and there he is, the boy who is turning the heads of everyone in the dining hall, commanding attention from just his presence. His hair glimmers under the bright fluorescent lamps, just as silver, and just as distracting. 

He weaves through the throng, the sea of awestruck people parting to make way for him. Even Donghyuck gives a tiny nod in his direction, eyes flicking momentarily to the ground in deference. 

He’s tall, just as Jaemin remembers, and today he’s in full ranger garb, with a deep green cloak swept over his shoulders, black combat boots crusted with stray dried grass and mud. 

Minhyung is truly a sight to behold, with his silver hair swept up to reveal a wide forehead and deep-set eyes. Cheeks flushed a light pink, likely from riding against the wind. Jaemin makes it a note to tell him how he should tamp down the silver hair once and for all. 

When he passes Jaemin, he doesn’t spare him a single glance, the same treatment he seems to give everyone. Jaemin sucks in a breath, eyes silently beseeching just one friendly look, even if it’s from out of the corner of his eye. But of course he doesn’t. He probably doesn’t even know yet that Jaemin’s here. 

“Ow, fuck, fuck, your nails are fucking _sharp_.” Jaemin yanks his arm towards his own chest. “Get off me!”

Jeno wails into his arms, and his hand accidentally flips his spoon of porridge in Jaemin’s direction in his haste to bury his head into the table. 

“Jeno! What the fuck, come on!” Jaemin grabs the box of tissue at the centre of the table to wipe off the mess before it can make an ugly splotch in his shirt. 

“Seems like you carried the noise with you from Seoul,” a new voice says, and he can hear the laughter in it. 

Jaemin freezes, and so does Jeno, only that Jeno’s eyes reflect a mixture of awe and terror. Jaemin frowns a little at that, even as he’s turning to look at the new joiner. 

“Minhyung. Didn’t think I’d actually see you here. Fancy that.”

“I’m stationed here for the oracle bones, same as you are. Thought you knew we’d be working together since I tagged along with Doyoung and Taeyong.”

Jaemin shrugs. “I just figured you were their errand boy.” 

Minhyung laughs heartily, the action throwing his head back. He’s bright and he really does glow. Jaemin can see why everyone here is enthralled by him. 

“Ouch. But welcome to Beijing. Too bad you’re not going to get to see Wolseongbong.” He claps a hand onto Jaemin’s shoulder. He watches Jeno’s eyes follow the movement, clearly green with envy. Jaemin hopes that he doesn’t lose any speck of friendship after this. 

“It’s no loss. Did you just come back from riding? Finally getting off your high horse and speaking to little old me here?”

“Wow. Doyoung wasn’t kidding when he said you could be worse than what we saw in Seoul. But yes, I was out riding. Taeyong told me that he took you out on our horses at their caves. Maybe we can ride sometime? Get some fresh air? Seems like you need it.”

Jaemin beams and punches Minhyung lightly in his stomach - the only place within reach from where he’s sitting. “Yeah, that’d be nice. Hey, maybe we could go together.” He gestures to Jeno. “He’s my chaperone here, can’t go traipsing about without him, can I? You know how Doyoung is.”

Jeno smiles and it’s a little giddy. Jaemin half wants to slap him. 

“Hey, yeah, of course. I can see why Doyoung assigned you to our grumpy Archiver. He’s really a handful, isn’t he?” He thumps Jaemin again on his back, and the gesture brings up pictures of Jaehyun. 

“Uh, haha, yeah,” Jeno murmurs unintelligibly. 

Minhyung either doesn’t notice his gurgling speech, or pretends not to. 

“Well, gotta run. I need to take a shower before our meeting with Doyoung. See you in a bit?”

Right, Jaemin had almost forgotten. 

“Mmm. See you.” He gives a lazy wave, but then Minhyung does the farewell greeting, and Jaemin smiles at the memory, holding out his right fist, waiting for him to bump them together. 

Minhyung laughs gaily and bumps it back, smiling the sort of smile that one holds when sharing an inside joke. Then he’s jogging off. 

“What.” Jaemin says as he digs into his porridge, licking the bowl clean, then draining the remainder of the soy milk in a single gulp. 

“You know him. Mark. You called him by his real name. You have a secret handshake!”

“Jeno. It’s your shaman greeting. You know it too.”

“He fist-bumped you!”

“Wait. Back-up. Doesn’t he refer to himself as Minhyung here?”

Jeno clamps a hand over his own mouth. “No. He introduced himself as Minhyung to you?”

“I met him when your leaders were hiring me for the job. And they introduced him as Minhyung.”

Jeno’s mouth opens and closes like a fish. Even his eyes are as bulbous as one. “Um. What the fuck? He asks everyone to address him as Mark here. And it’s not fair that you actually got to talk to him properly! The most I’ve ever gotten is a hello or a friendly nod.”

“Don’t worry. You’re not missing anything. He’s an idiot.”

Jeno looks outraged. “No, he’s -”

“Really, Jeno.” Jaemin pats his shoulder. “Take it from someone who’s just bursting with candour. He may be some golden protege, but he’s also just extremely ordinary. Don’t need to moon over him. Pick someone else, like, I don’t know, Doyoung. He’s worth mooning over, even though he’s a prick.”

“Nana, maybe you just caught him on a -”

“Nana.” Taeil calls over the breakfast din. “We’ll be ready to go in ten. I want to go over a few things before the meeting.”

Jaemin nods. “Meet you outside in ten.”

“Jeno, pass the message to Renjun too, please. He’s part of the task force.” He nods to the boy slouching his entire upper body onto a table, just two table rows down from them. His eyes are closed, lips parted in deep sleep.

Jaemin catches a flicker of horror in his eyes, which is quickly hidden when he bows his head. “Yes, Taeil.”

***

“So, you’re the famed Archiver.” 

Youngho rests his head on his hand. He has a deathly pallor to his skin, only accentuated by his ink-black hair.

He sports an undercut, with a long fringe that blankets the left eye. His right eye is fully black, with a white diamond dotting the iris. Jaemin is well-read enough to know that it’s neither painted nor artificial. 

“And you’re Youngho, the famed demon dancer.”

Youngho giggles. “ _Half_ of a pair of demon dancers.” When he laughs, his long fingers draw up to partially cover his mouth. His hands are wrapped in rounds of black cloth, a contrast to the rest of his white outfit, the tips of his fingers left naked that Jaemin can see how blackened they are. 

_From dancing on burnt coals and channelling the fire spirits_ , Jaemin recalls. 

They’re the ones who help to appease the fire spirits, who visit their places of dwelling to give them the respect they deserve. They make sure that their fires burn to give light and heat, but never to scar or maim or kill. 

“And where’s your other half, then?” Jaemin leans forward in interest, noting how the diamond sparkles and transforms into a wick of flame. 

“The Archiver isn’t afraid.” When he speaks, it’s layered, like there are two voices speaking over one another. 

“Of course not.” Jaemin isn’t one to recoil from the supernatural. “Why would I be?”

“Why indeed.” He whispers, his voice back to a singular tone. “Why indeed! You’re my kin!” He shrieks. 

Jaemin throws him a bewildered glance. “What do you mean by -”

“Enough,” Doyoung groans. “You’re giving me a headache. Is Yongqin coming? Because I’m going to lock that door in two minutes, with or without everyone being here.”

Doyoung unravels his scarf from around his neck, only to rearrange it and pin the brooch back in place. Jaemin doesn’t see the difference between how it looked like before and now, but he’s become quite used to Doyoung’s fanaticism for neatness. 

Beside him, Taeyong curls an index finger surreptitiously around Doyoung’s own. 

“He’s around the corridor.” Taeyong says, eyes a cloudy white, because he’s looking past the walls. Doyoung harrumphs but doesn’t shake his finger off. 

Jaemin leans back from Youngho. He’s sitting by Taeil, the only other person he knows in this room. Jeno hadn’t been allowed to enter of course - he’s not senior or skilled enough to be a part of the force. 

He laces his fingers together to keep from drumming them impatiently on the table. He wishes that the meeting would start soon, so that he can get to work and focus on what he’s come here for. 

This dilly-dallying is beginning to annoy him greatly. If only everyone here could respect the time as much as Doyoung did. 

The door opens, and it’s the other demon dancer, Yongqin, with Minhyung in tow, completing their little group. 

Yongqin predictably slides to take the vacant chair next to Youngho but drapes himself over his lap instead. Minhyung crosses over quickly, head bowed low humbly and in apology as he stops in front of the one other stranger whom Jaemin hasn’t properly met yet. He’s got a six-sided black cube twirled between his fingers. Minhyung draws the chair out silently and plops down next to him. 

“Great. Thirty seconds to time - that was cutting it. Now that we’re all here, some quick introductions. This is our Archiver, Nana. He’s going to be listening to and transcribing the human oracle bones. On the shamans side - we have the twins, Youngho and Yongqin. They specialise in speaking with the fire spirits, and any pyromancy readings for the bones is their area of expertise. Taeil, our guide for nature spirits, Minhyung, for medicine. Renjun, our dreamwalker. And both Taeyong and I will oversee everything, of course.”

Jaemin sneaks a peek at Renjun. Dreamwalker? Interesting.

“Nana, do you have a question?”

Jaemin snatches his eyes back to Doyoung. “Why do we need the demon dancers? This exercise doesn’t involve pyromancy. We’re not going to be burning the bones to read them, unlike the regular ox and turtle shells. Isn’t that why I’m here? To listen to them? Pyromancy is highly inaccurate as well, because it’s based on interpretation.”

Yongqin laughs, and it scratches out in high-pitched tones. “The Archiver’s understanding of us is shallow.”

“Nana.” Taeil covers his hand with his. “We need the twins because they can calm the storms of angry spirits, which often manifests as fire.”

“But they’re fragmented. How much power can a piece of a spirit hold?” 

“But you have many fragments here. We can’t know for sure. If they were used for readings in ancient China, they hold more power than we can imagine. They could have been shamans when they were alive too, meaning their power could be tenfold.”

Jaemin slumps back in his chair. “Fine. Point taken. Sorry for interrupting, Doyoung.”

“Are you going to attempt to piece the bones together?” Renjun speaks up for the first time from his corner in a drawl. 

Taeyong looks at him and back at Doyoung, and a dark look passes between them.

Jaemin sits up. 

“You are, aren’t you. That’s why you called the Archiver here. You want to see if there’s a whole spirit, and you need an accurate reading from him to be able to do it.”

Doyoung scowls as if that will shut Renjun up. 

“We don’t know if this is the case. But if there is -”

“If there is, you’re going to use it as a vessel for your power.” Jaemin says slowly, feeling like his mouth tastes more like ash the more he speaks. “To channel their energy.”

“No.” Taeil tightens his fingers over Jaemin’s. “We would never disrespect the bones like that. But we need to confirm if there were any shamans who were made to become oracle bones. It’s a part of our history that we need to know. To see how the kings of old treated our kind.”

“Why is that important now? Even if they were shamans, that’s at least ten centuries ago.”

“We…” Taeyong begins. “There are practices and knowledge that might not have been passed down in writing. It was mostly verbal, before. And of course, any writing would have been the oracle script, most of which we aren’t able to read, even today. We need your help with that.”

“Even though you don’t know every single character, you can still talk to them, get them to teach you what the writings mean,” Taeil continues.

Jaemin raises his eyebrows. “So you want me to record shaman history. That’s what this is about? That’s what you got me to touch the bones for?”

There’s a look, quick as lightning, that flashes across Taeil’s eyes, and Jaemin latches on to that immediately. 

“There’s something else, isn’t there. What is it?”

“That. Is none of your business.” Doyoung hisses.

“It _is_ my business, if I’m going to be reading these goddamned bones for you.” Jaemin leaps up from his chair, chair legs scraping angrily against the floor. He shakes Taeil’s hand off in a wild flurry. 

“Fucking hell, Doyoung. Jaehyun was right. He said there’d be more to this than we thought. You’re no tiger, but a fucking snake.”

“Nana...” Minhyung looks between them, eyes frantic. He too stands, but his hands hover by their sides uselessly. 

Doyoung arches his back and meets Jaemin’s defiance head-on. It’s no surprise that he manages to keep his cool, which only grates against him more. 

“You get to record this in your history - a momentous period in time. You also get to enhance your knowledge of the oracle script, something no one has ever been able to do - no human, no Whisperer, no shaman. And we get to learn about our people, and do what we will with it. There’s a win-win. If you can’t control your temper, then you’re invited to leave.”

“Doyoung!” Jaemin growls. “Information like this cannot be used for personal gain.”

“That is your ethic. But we’re not Whisperers.”

“It is his business.” Youngho mutters in the background, breaking through the tension, the diamond in his eyeball quivering. “It is. It is.”

Doyoung looks at him. Really looks at him with regard now. “Say that again.”

“Nana’s business,” Youngho says, his voice much louder now without anyone else speaking over him. 

Doyoung holds out a hand to the demon dancer. “Give me your hand,” he demands.

“Won’t. Won’t give it.” He’s rocking in his chair now, hugging his hand to his chest, with Yongqin silently looking on. 

Doyoung sighs resignedly, but also expectantly, like he’d foreseen this. “Will you give it to Taeyong then?”

He shakes his head, but points an ink-smeared finger to Renjun instead, voice taking on a double-toned timbre once more. 

_“The midnight moon exposes every bone._

_I open the curtains to watch earth  
hold such pouring silver  
until I forget I'm human._

_The moon lands on my floor  
to reveal my blanched feet.”_

“He’s gone,” Minhyung says, sitting back down and shaking his head. 

Renjun eyes Youngho warily. “I’m not giving him my fucking hand.”

Doyoung nods, but Jaemin doesn’t think that it’s in answer to either Minhyung or Renjun. 

“I believe he’s just trying to convey a message.”

Renjun’s fingers tighten around the cube. “Well, I’m not sure that anyone can make sense of that message.”

Doyoung keeps his eyes trained on Renjun for as long as Youngho continues to keep his finger pointed at Renjun, reciting the words over and over again. Renjun seems to wither a little under his watch; his hands dig into the cube, shoulders hunching in. 

When Youngho drops his hand, Doyoung releases his finger from Taeyong’s hold. Renjun breathes out the breath he’d been holding. 

He walks over, steps slow and purposeful as he makes his way gingerly over to Youngho, like he doesn’t want to make any sudden movements, doesn’t want to alarm him as he’s coming out of his stupor. He pats his head gently, brushing his fringe away from his eye long enough for Jaemin to see that the other eye is missing - a hollow, black hole. 

He bends down to kiss his head, then he walks back to the head of the table, clearing his throat. 

“Alright. Nana, you’re with Renjun and Yongqin. Record whatever you hear about the bones. Ask them if they were shamans. Minhyung, Youngho, Taeil - you’ll be dispatched to Yinxu again to collect more bones once Nana has told you where to find more of them - as I’m sure there will be. We’ll meet here everyday at twilight to discuss any findings. This is it for today. Nana, I’ll speak with you separately tomorrow please. Come to my rooms for breakfast.”

“I’m not listening to any bone until I know you aren’t going to piece a whole human for yourself.” Jaemin sticks his chin out obstinately. Beside him, Taeil gives a tiny exhale.

“My rooms tomorrow, at seven o’clock.” Doyoung grits out. Then he’s sitting back down in his chair, rolling out a scroll to read - a signal that he will entertain no one for not a second more.

Jaemin sighs, half-wishing he’d been grouped with either Minhyung or Taeil, if only to preserve some sanity while here. 

They file out together save for Taeyong, who has also picked up a scroll to read in silence beside Doyoung. 

“Renjun,” Minhyung turns to him, breathing out the name softly. To Jaemin, it sounds like it borders on reverence. Minhyung doesn’t move to touch, simply regards this boy Renjun with gentle eyes and an equally fond smile. 

“You were actually early, for once,” Renjun sniffs. He covers the distance between them, one arm looping stiffly around his neck briefly, his other hand still gripping the black cube between his fingers. 

Minhyung runs his hands up and down the length of his back once before Renjun drops his arm to step back. 

Minhyung whispers something, which makes Renjun bark out a laugh. 

“I thought you’d forgotten about that. Should’ve known you’d still be hung up about losing a game of archery.” His hands reach to unclasp a chain from around his neck. “Here, I kept it in pristine condition, as always.”

“As always,” Minhyung agrees, looping it around his own neck and clicking it into place. 

Renjun looks down at the necklace and beams. 

Jaemin tries not to roll his eyes and fake a barf. The amount of people falling over for him is ridiculous. 

The group scatters, with only one person remaining at the corridor - the one with the black lightning mark painted under his right eye - the only one who still had his mouth set into a grim line when Youngho had careened into some sort of trance earlier. Renjun. The only one whom Minhyung had really deigned to speak to.

“Hi.” Jaemin tries. 

“It’s rude to keep Jeno waiting.” Renjun says as he leans back against a wall, twisting the cube between his fingers. All six sides are painted black, but Renjun flips the cubes meaningfully, like there’s an actual pattern to solve. Maybe there is. 

“Why would he be waiting for me?”

“Don’t be an idiot. Doyoung assigned you to his care. He’s probably running all over looking for you and thinking someone’s finally and rightfully stabbed you.”

A half-choked sound escapes him. Jaemin hadn’t needed long to nail down that Renjun was aggressive and blunt, yet the unwarranted hate woven into those words still stings. 

“You don’t even know me enough to be such an asshole.“

“Don’t I?” He looks up from the cube, fingers still moving. “I think I got enough of your general disposition in those ten minutes.”

“What can I say, Doyoung brings out the worst in me.” 

Renjun snorts. “I think you’re just generally disagreeable. I don’t think you know what it means not to go through a single conversation without dropping some snarkiness.”

“And you’re quite presumptuous.” Jaemin says, voice dangerously close to jumping off the edge of civility. 

“If you don’t like it here, you’re free to leave. I’m sure there are bone whisperers around the world who would jump at the chance to touch an oracle bone, like you. Doyoung’s quite the manipulator.”

“I came here of my own accord,” Jaemin says, voice insistent and hard and sounding very much like he’s trying to explain himself to Renjun. 

Renjun doesn’t answer, or maybe he’s answering by not answering. The rows and columns spin quickly in his hands, clicking sharply as he flicks them this way and that. 

Jaemin turns away, the loneliness burrowing into his bones even deeper than even yesterday. 

“Don’t think that you get a free pass to behave however you like, even with Taeil’s protection,” Renjun says, voice ringing out clearly in the near-empty hall. “And Doyoung can try to keep the peace all he wants, but you’re not wanted here.”

Jaemin whips back around, a verbal attack forming on his own tongue.

“Well, Doyoung can try all he wants, but he’ll never be able to find a first-rate Whisperer or a shaman who can understand anything about the bones, let alone hear them in their original language. And he clearly knows it, which is why I’m here. So I’d shut the fuck up and think twice before insulting me.” 

He comes closer to loom over Renjun’s frame. “And for the record, I don’t ever want to be like any of you. I came here for the oracle bones. Not to make friends with possessed freaks like you.”

That’s a sharp slap to Renjun’s face - he can see it in the way his eyes narrow even as his mouth opens without a sound. 

_Yes, that’s right. You’d better know your fucking place, dreamwalker, whatever you are._

Jaemin curls his fingers into his palms, nails digging hard into them to ground himself. He stalks out of the corridor like this - like a machine with gears and cogs wound tight, holding itself together until it’s safe enough to self-combust. 

The long winding hall leads out to an open-air atrium, beautifully decorated with sprigs of native plants and flowers. He can identify not a single one. The entire sanctuary shouts with a quiet foreignness, and he wishes he were back in the Archivers’ chambers, or tunnelling deep under the earth. 

He gets the notion that there’ll always be a part of it that’ll be shut out to him, no matter how comforting a presence Taeil is, or how warm Jeno’s hugs are. 

A slight drizzle takes up outside, raindrops matting stone tables outside a dark grey. Jaemin puts his hand on one of them, feeling how cool and damp it is to the touch. 

He unhooks his clear quartz pendant and wraps the cord around his palm, touching the stone to his pulse on his wrist. He breathes in deeply. And then out. And in again. Eight counts, Jaemin. Then repeat. 

_Jaemin. Jaeminnn._

He squeezes his eyes shut tightly, shutting it out, calling up all the nonsensical whispers of the bones he’s ever listened to expand into a bubble of white noise. 

His shoulder jostles, and he lets out a yelp.

“Thought you’d be here where the sun is. Like a typical Archiver.”

“Oh. Hi, Jeno.”

“Hello. Wallowing? Can I join in?”

Jaemin decides that if no one else won’t give him the time of day, then maybe he’ll make a friend out of Jeno.

“Be my guest.” He gestures to the patch of grass next to him, patting the warm soil invitingly. 

“You guys really dig soil, huh?” When he grins, his eyes curve up into perfect semicircles. 

“Haha. You’re hilarious.”

Jeno grins, and plops down onto the ground.

Jaemin covers his face with his hands and moans. “Why did you tell me that there was no one else I should be wary of?”

“What do you mean?” Jeno looks at him anxiously. 

“Renjun. He fucking ambushed me for no reason barely fifteen minutes after we met. Fuck, I think he might even be worse than Doyoung.”

Jeno bites his lip, expression contrite. “Oh. Whoops. He usually keeps to himself, and he can be quite prickly, so I don’t really talk to him. I always got the sense that he was just introverted, or not used to making friends quickly maybe, but not hostile."

“Well, he’s hostile all right,” Jaemin complains. “Hostile probably sums it up. God, and he’s on my team.”

Jeno looks even more apologetic. “I’m really sorry. If it helps, I hear he’s very good at what he does.”

Jaemin shakes his head. “He’s a dreamwalker? What’s that mean?”

Jeno lifts his shoulders up and drops them. “Don’t really know. Sorry I’m not much help. No one really talks to one another here if we don’t know them personally. Apparently he’s from our Jilin base, so he’s only been here a couple of weeks.”

“Nah, don’t worry about it. I’ll handle it somehow. It’ll be a fucking headache, but it can’t be much worse if I’m mentally prepared. Heavens, if Lucas were here now he'd have just, I don't know, punched him good.” He misses him and Xiaojun now - they'd always known exactly how to cheer him up. He thinks about their last confrontation before he'd left and he feels like such a shitty asshole of a friend.

"Lucas?" Jeno touches a finger to the pendant. “Is he the one who gave that to you?”

“No, it was my mentor, Jaehyun. It’s to clear the mind.”

“I thought you guys didn’t believe in all that mystical mojo.”

“We don’t. I do, to a point,” Jaemin emphasises. “I mix them into the bone necklaces that I weave. It helps, sometimes, to quiet them, or it gives them a proper channel to communicate or share their energies. It depends on the type of crystal and the type of bone, really.”

“Huh. I’ll pretend I understood whatever you just said.”

“It’s really not complicated. It’s just channelling energies through the crystals to enhance or focus my abilities.”

“Right.”

“You’re a shaman, so you’re kind of your own instrument. You’re the in-between for the human and spirit world, right? Well, the crystals are my in-between for the energy needed to listen to the bones, and the bones themselves.”

“Okay. It’s making a little more sense now.” Jeno wiggles his eyebrows in confusion, which makes Jaemin burst out into laughter.

“I’m glad that Doyoung assigned you to me.” Jaemin says, and slumps onto the bed of damp grass. His nose tickles when a blade of grass pokes into a nostril. The scent of the fresh grass is relaxing, and he thinks that he wouldn’t mind coming here at dawn to smell what it’s like in the morning, with dew forming on the underside. 

“I’m glad too.” Jeno sinks down alongside Jaemin, and in seconds, he closes the distance between them without pause, and Jaemin realises belatedly that he’s kissing him. That they’re kissing. 

His eyebrows shoot up and his hands come up to push him off instinctively. His breath comes in a series of ragged inhales and exhales, hand clutched protectively against his stomach. 

“What the fuck, Jeno,” he can’t help but curse. He touches his fingers to his lips and they come away with a faint shimmer. Jeno’s gloss. 

“What? Never kissed a boy before?” 

“No. I mean, no I haven’t but also, no, I’m not panicking because a boy kissed me. I’m panicking because...because...”

“Because?”

“I don’t know, actually. You just kind of surprised me.”

“Because you like someone else?”

Jaemin pauses, like he’s really thinking about it. Then he shakes his head. 

“Guess I really threw you for a loop, didn’t I?”

“Haha. Yeah.” Jaemin glances down at the ground, curling his fingers into the grass, brushing the soil. 

“I’m sorry. I just did it on impulse. I won’t kiss you again if you don’t want me to, promise. But for the record, I would want to. Kiss you again, I mean.”

Jaemin twists his head to him in surprise. “Why?”

“Why not?”

Jaemin quirks a brow. “I’m not Minhyung. Or Mark.”

“I know,” he says, a little sadly. “But Mark never really looks at anyone anyway.”

“Except Renjun.”

Jeno blinks. “How do you know that.”

“We’re all in the same task force.”

“Oh.” He plucks a handful of grass mindlessly and crushes it in his hand. Jaemin looks at him with not a little pity. 

Starved of any proper human touch or affection, Jaemin thinks, fuck it, and leans toward him to kiss him again.

***

Doyoung’s rooms are situated on the top floor. 

Because this is a traditional Japanese guesthouse, this means that there are no elevators; Jaemin has to haul himself up four long flights of stairs.

Unlike in the caves, Doyoung doesn’t share the room with Taeyong, which colours Jaemin a little surprised. 

“Taeyong doesn’t share with you?” Is the first thing out of his mouth when he takes in the singular pot of tea, a single teacup and saucer, a single pair of slippers. 

“Good morning to you too, Nana.” Doyoung says from where he sits at his desk - a light cherry wood with odd marks inscribed into the legs. When Jaemin squints for a better look, it looks like claw marks. Tiger claw marks, to be exact. 

He flicks his eyes back up quickly when he realises that Doyoung is watching him. The room is large, interior decor and size entirely befitting that of the leader of the shamans. Silk white curtains, a four-poster king-sized bed, a kitchenette complete with an island that accommodates four, a lounge area with a chaise and a coffee table, and an adjoining bathroom. 

The furniture bears the same cherry wood all around, so it must belong to the guesthouse. Jaemin suppresses the urge to remark on how everything would have been white limestone if it had been up to Doyoung. 

“Sorry, good morning.” Jaemin manages to look apologetic. 

“Coffee?” Doyoung gestures to the counter at the far end of the room. “It’s fresh. And there’s fresh cream and milk in the fridge. I know you don’t fancy pu’er.”

Jaemin smiles. Classic Kim Doyoung. Of course he’d remember. “Thank you.”

He goes to pour himself a steaming mug, dumping in a dollop of cream, foregoing sugar. Then he moves to plant himself onto the empty chair opposite Doyoung, mentally prepping himself for the conversation ahead. 

“So, what did you want to talk about?”

Doyoung smiles a small smile, amused by his straightforwardness. 

“I wanted to let you know how we intend to use the bones when we piece them together.”

“ _When_ we piece them together,” Jaemin repeats. “So you know for sure that there are whole human bodies, only that their bones are scattered all over the place?”

“Yes.” Doyoung takes an agonisingly slow sip of his tea.

“How?” It comes out like a demand, but Doyoung lets it pass. 

“I’ll just say that we have a very skilled shaman who’s posted in Henan. She owed us a favour.”

Jaemin rolls his eyes. Doyoung was a master at keeping a rolodex of debtors and collecting on them when it suited him. 

“Of course.”

“Of course, she’s no Whisperer, so she was only able to get as far as that. But that barely scratches the surface of what we’ll need to know. That’s where you figured in.”

“Still, that’s pretty impressive,” Jaemin says. “Who is she? Or is that another secret?”

Doyoung smiles, which means yes. 

“Fine. Whatever, I don’t really care. So you know there’s a whole human body of bones. And you said there was something else you wanted them for. So what then?”

“Tell me, Nana. If you had an entire shaman spirit that you could piece together as a single human oracle body, what could you do with that? As a shaman.” 

Jaemin can see that Doyoung wants him to arrive at the answer himself, is testing his intelligence and his knowledge of their people. 

“You speak with spirits. Sometimes you enter trances where they temporarily inhabit your body...you can manipulate elements through your affinity with them...you can come and go into dreams...” Jaemin ruminates on each varying ability, placing himself in their shoes and how he would maximise each power with the oracle bones. 

His eyes light up. “You’re going to have the whole spirit inhabit your body? If they were shamans themselves, you would have access to their abilities and knowledge...including...accurate fortune-telling.”

Doyoung’s eyes glimmer, impressed.

“You’re close. But not quite. Firstly, fortune-telling in and of itself isn’t accurate. It is always up to interpretation. Secondly, we don’t have spirits inhabiting our bodies just like that. It takes a lot of preparation.”

Jaemin has the grace to look a bit sheepish.

“But a whole human oracle bone, and a former shell of a shaman, could teach us how to tap into our own pool of powers - access to their knowledge. Many details like these would have been lost over time, like what Taeyong said.”

“But Doyoung, they could be angry spirits. You might not be able to control them, yet along even understand them, even with someone as strong as you.”

“I know,” Doyoung says quietly. “But we have to try.”

Jaemin sets his mug of coffee down before he accidentally drops it.

“I get why you want to know your past. But I still don’t really understand what you really need.”

“You have a better grasp of their language. And you can actually speak with them, see them in your mind. See their souls, just like that. See their memories.”

A tiny bit of understanding begins to bloom.

“You need their memories. Not just a mundane record of their lives. But memories of what?”

Doyoung tucks his head into his neck for a brief second, but Jaemin doesn’t miss the smile that snakes across his lips. When he looks up, his eyes are clouded pure obsidian. 

He stands and comes around the desk to stand over him. “Jaemin,” he says, daring to utter his actual name. “Jaemin, what if you’re one of us?”

A wave of hot white anger pulses through him. “Don’t. Call. Me. That.”

“Jaemin.” Doyoung brushes a lone finger through his fringe, his fingertip grazing his forehead. The contact sends a zing of pain shooting through his brain, and he hears the flap of wings and the susurrus of his name crackling about his ears, building into a thunderous call.

He waves his hands about him blindly, knocking his hand away. “Stop it!”

“You heard your name, didn’t you?” Doyoung continues, edging closer. He cradles Jaemin’s cheek, and the touch this time fills his body with warmth, like flames licking at a fireplace while a blizzard howls outside. 

Jaemin sobs at the rising emotions, dredging up memories of Jaehyun’s soft hugs and gentle coaxes to sleep. He feels about and clutches at Doyoung’s hand. 

“I said stop it! Please, Doyoung!”

Doyoung drops the images, but he clasps his hands over his. 

“Youngho has never been wrong. Trust me, Jaemin. You are not just a Whisperer. There is something else in your blood. I know it. There might have been a time when our kind was one. I need to know if this is true.”

Jaemin shakes his head. “You’re wrong. I’m not one of you. I might be a better Whisperer because I have stronger abilities, but I am no shaman. I can’t go into trances like that. And I most certainly do not manipulate elements, neither do I walk in dreams.”

Doyoung rubs his thumb between the groove of Jaemin’s thumb and index finger. It’s gentle and familial, and completely uncharacteristic of him. 

“Alright. I won’t talk about this anymore, at least not until we’ve gone through the first few batches of bones. And I won’t tell anyone about my theory. No,” he looks down at Jaemin, patting his hand reassuringly. “Not even Taeyong understood what Youngho was saying. No one else knows except for you and I.”

Doyoung untangles their hands, raising it to finger a strand of Jaemin’s hair. “But in return, you will consider what I just told you. Seriously consider it. Like I said, Youngho never lies. And he is never wrong.”

Jaemin pulls his hand back. “And what do you want with me, if Youngho is right? I know you, Doyoung. You always have something you’re hiding.”

Doyoung runs his hand through his own hair. Jaemin rarely saw him like this. Frazzled, cautious. “Promise you’ll come to Wolseongbong.”

A tremor goes through him. Exactly what Jaehyun had predicted, only not how they imagined. 

“I…I can’t promise that,” he says shakily.

“Here,” Doyoung says, pulling his long sleeves back to reveal his right wrist. There's an outline of a crescent moon inked there, facing leftwards. “This is the mark I got after I crossed through."

_Crossed through?_

"Youngho's and Yongqin's are the matching diamonds - the one you saw in Youngho's right eye, and one in Yongqin's left. You haven't seen Yongqin's because his diamond is black. It's only visible when he uses his abilities. And Renjun's, as you might have noticed, is the lightning under his eye."

The room plunges into silence. Even with all this evidence laid out right in front of him, Jaemin refuses to believe. Because he is an Archiver through and through. It's in his blood, and his Archiver abilities are proof of that. Blood never lied.

“I want to speak to Jaehyun. And stop calling me Jaemin.”

Doyoung laughs, and Jaemin finds himself drawn to the way his airy voice echoes in the room, and how his eyes sparkle with a shadow of the Otherworld. He craves that warmth he’d felt from his earlier touch, and it frightens him. 

“Oh, Nana. He’s already on his way here. I called him yesterday.”

Jaemin’s mouth circles into a quiet 'O', and he wonders exactly what sort of trap he’s fallen into.

***

_“Guess you’ll never be one of us, Nana. Some people just don’t have it.”_

He stirs. All Jaemin sees is red. It’s like there’s a film of red hanging over his eyes. 

The valley where the guesthouse lies is smeared in red. Then he’s walking out of the guesthouse barefoot, into plains that are a coppery red. 

He walks by touch, letting his hands feel their way through the thick shrubbery, letting his feet find balance on grassy walkways. 

A peal of laughter resounds in the air, and he looks up to a flock of birds flapping out from the trees. 

Laughter again. It really does sound like Youngho. 

“Hello? Youngho?”

He picks his way through the trees, shaking his head in hopes that it will clear the red fog.

It doesn’t, but Jaemin adjusts his vision and finds that the fog lifts when he doesn’t fight it. 

Something sharp clips his ear, and he’s too shocked to yell in pain. He puts a hand to the trickling blood along the shell of his ear, and it feels warm to the touch. 

A bird flaps into view, slowing down when it reaches him. Jaemin holds out a hand without thinking, and it hops onto his palm obediently. Its beak opens, lapping up a drop of blood. 

It caws, and digs its talons into his hand, wanting more.

_“J-Jaemin. Jaeminnnnnnn.”_

Jaemin jumps and springs awake. 

“Sleeping on the job?” Renjun sneers from across him. 

Jaemin decides it’s wiser to ignore him when they’ve barely begun any work. Today is the first day that they’re actually listening to the bones and working together as a team, and he can’t afford to crack at the first stab of aggression.

He brushes his hair back from his forehead and rubs his eyes in one fluid motion. 

“These are the bones that I’m going to be listening to today.” He pulls a tray of five towards them. 

“What will you two be doing in the meantime?” Jaemin looks up, genuinely curious.

Yongqin picks up one shell to dangle close to his face. “Waiting by the wings.” He puts it back onto the tray and slides his head down, pillowing it onto his arms. “I’ll wake up if there’s any fiery spirit. Otherwise, please leave me be.” 

Then he shuts his eyes, soon breathing out gentle snores. 

Jaemin stares, speechless. Is this how shitty their work ethic was?

He turns to Renjun helplessly. 

“I’ll help out only if you’re unable to make out what they say. Or if you lose yourself. Otherwise, you’re pretty much free to do your thing.” Renjun says it like he would prefer Jaemin to not have any mishaps. 

“How would you help me if I don’t know what they’re saying? Or if I lose myself?” Jaemin rolls his eyes at the ‘losing myself’ part. He’s never not been able to get out of a dream-memory unscathed. 

“Entering through dreams.” He answers, as if it’s obvious enough and Jaemin is just too stupid to understand. 

“Well,” Jaemin squares his shoulder, turning his best glare onto Renjun, because that’s how much he just about can’t take it anymore. “I’m asking you precisely because I don’t know. Because this is serious work. If you have a personal problem with me, let’s drop it when we’re working.”

A bit of respect slides into Renjun’s eyes, but otherwise, his expression doesn’t change. “Fine.” He grunts. “I’ll sit across you. Let's see whether you can put your money where your mouth is.”

Jaemin nods determinedly, not trusting himself to speak. He picks up one bone, and he surprised himself at how his fingers don’t flinch as he reaches for them. He pushes down mounting thoughts of guilt at his un-Whisperer-like behaviour and concentrates on his work. 

Curling both hands around the bones seems familiar. The way his hands fit around both rounded and jagged edges mystifies him. The whispers slither into his mind easily, gently penetrating his barriers, like they were always meant to be read by him, like they _want_ to be read by him. 

Jaemin breathes in deeply through his nose. “Hello,” he says out loud, in the Anyang dialect. 

He thinks of the whispers like a curling mist, like a pile of confused tendrils trying to untangle themselves, and Jaemin is their charmer, the only one they will respond to and unfurl to reveal themselves. 

“Yes, that’s right. I’m Nana.” He whispers. 

He can’t see it, but Renjun leans closer to Jaemin, body stiff with the pretext of danger. His hands have inched closer to Jaemin. 

“No. Nana. Just a servant. Not Lord Na.” Jaemin soothes. “Do you remember what the sun looks like? That’s where we’ll be going. Out of this tunnel, and into the light. We’ll go there, if you take my hand, and we can talk along the way.”

“It’s okay. They can’t hurt us now. Look at my hands - just scars, but they’re healed. No more power over us, not anymore.”

The grip on the bone tightens and shifts, like he’s clasping someone’s hand. After a minute, he lets one hand go to pick up the pen on the table. 

Then, he begins to draw. A series of pictographs. The person’s life story, Renjun realises after more legible images like a hut and children are scrawled onto the sheet of paper. 

Jaemin carries on like this for the next half an hour, his voice never dropping the gentle tones, his hands never stopping its motion of pen flying across paper. It’s only when his fingers set the pen down that Renjun realises that he’s opened his eyes. 

Jaemin drains his glass of water, cracks his knuckles and neck. 

“You didn’t take a break.” Renjun whispers, careful not to wake a sleeping Yongqin. 

“I can’t. I need to keep them talking. If they stop, they might not start up again.” Jaemin explains. 

There’s a noticeable sag in the underside of his eyes. And then there’s another two more glasses of water filled and drained in the span of a minute. Jaemin sees Renjun drink all of this in.

“I don’t think you should continue. At least not right now. You’re exhausted.” Renjun says, even as Jaemin shakes his head. 

“No can do. We’re on a tight schedule. I have to do at least two more today to be considered productive.”

Renjun frowns. “Productive to yourself, or to Doyoung?”

Jaemin huffs as he scribbles a few extra drawings onto the piece of paper, perhaps recording additional notes he’d missed out on while in his trance. “I don’t answer to shamans. _He_ needs me, remember?”

“Is that how badly you want to get out of here? That you’d rush through the readings?”

Jaemin digs into his bag, pulling out a hematite bracelet to roll onto his wrist. “While this place isn’t exactly the hotel of my dreams, I’d like to think I’m enough of a professional to put aside lofty aspirations like shamans with great bedside manners to do my job properly.”

He picks up another bone shell, flipping it this way and that to check for cracks. “Now, I’d really appreciate it if you stopped questioning everything about me from here on out. It’s extremely insulting.”

“Look, I’m just trying to look out for you, alright? If you’re tired, you might do a shit job. How the fuck do I know how long you’d last with consecutive readings? At least ingest something aside from water before you pass out at the table.”

Jaemin groans. For fuck’s sake. “You know what? Fine. I’m taking this lotus bun. See?” He swipes one off the nearby trolley of snacks, yanking off a small piece of it with his teeth. “Happy?”

“I’m jumping for joy,” Renjun says, voice and expression deadpan. 

“Are you guys done?” Yongqin murmurs from his spot. His movements are cat-like when he stretches out on his chair - long back arching into a curve that leaves Jaemin privately grimacing, hands curled up like claws as he stretches both arms towards the ceiling, head tipped back to expose his pale neck.

“Sorry, Yongqin, did we wake you?” Jaemin whispers, quite unnecessarily now that he’s awoken.

“Ten.”

“You wanted us to wake you at ten am?” Jaemin tries.

“No. My name. Ten. You can call me that, instead of Yongqin.”

“Oh. Um, yeah, sure.” Jaemin looks back to the bones. “Will you be going back to sleep?”

Yongqin - no, Ten - shakes his head. “Too noisy.”

“Okay. I’ll continue then. This might take me another half an hour, maybe more,” he warns.

He waits for both of them to either object or acknowledge him, but they do neither. Rather, they arrange themselves a little more comfortably, as if settling in for a long day ahead.

Jaemin inhales deeply. “Alright, here goes the second one.” 

His mind fades to black, whispers sifting in.

***

They’re into the fourth bone when the first twinges of tumult hits. 

Jaemin is knee-deep in the Mongolian desert, and everywhere around him is a blanket of sand, sand, sand. The heat is sapping, bearing down on his body like a drowsy weight. One small push and he’d totter over and drop to the ground.

The girl - his current charge - is a tiny thing. She must be no more than eight. Spritely and brimming with boundless energy, she races across the sandy plains in front of Jaemin.

“Hey, wait for me!” He calls, laughing.

She shouts something back, and her face has panic written all over it. She beckons him forward frantically as she yells for him to come, come, come.

“They’re not coming after us! I promise!” He screams in their language, but a gale has taken up along with the screaming, and Jaemin can’t make himself heard above the cacophony. 

“Nana, what’s going on?” Renjun shakes his shoulder, but in Jaemin’s head the hand belongs to a passing beggar, so he throws it off. There is no sense in this dreamworld, but it makes perfect sense in his head, because this memory is hers. Li Li’s.

Jaemin is dismayed at how tough this memory is, at the inklings of resistance this dream-memory is giving him.

“It’s okay, you’re alright, you’re safe,” Jaemin coos to the spirit. “They won’t be able to find us in the sandstorm.”

“You’re lying,” Li Licries. “You’re lying, just like Mama lied that she would stay with me and protect me.”

A fistful of sand hits Jaemin’s eyes, and he yowls and curses. 

“Fuck. Li Li, wait!” He scrambled after her, and her form starts to shiver and shimmer out of visibility. He’s losing her. 

A stabbing pain blooms into his side, and he sees a spear sprout from the other end of his body. Shang soldiers, Jaemin realises with dread. Just how deep has he plummeted into her mind?

In their little room, Renjun sees the pen swish about, making a series of indecipherable loops as Jaemin’s eyes quiver rather unnaturally under his eyelids. 

Jaemin opens his mouth and screams blue murder, clutching his side, but his other hand never lets go of the bone - a testament to his sheer determination to see this through. Or maybe how deeply entrenched he is in the memory.

“Alright, that’s it. I’m going in,” Renjun declares. 

“Okay,” Ten says softly. “Be careful.”

Renjun drops his Rubik’s cube, cupping his hands over both of Jaemin’s, over the bone. He sinks into Jaemin’s mind, hair billowing from a gust of sandy wind. 

“Where the fuck...” he mutters. 

He spies Jaemin running ahead, screaming Li Li’s name and chasing after...no one. 

“Nana! Nana, it’s me, Renjun!”

He dashes after the Archiver, taking a running dive, pouncing onto his body to bring him to a rolling halt. 

Jaemin is thrashing and still screaming. Their limbs are all in a tangle, and when Renjun looks down at his hands, they’re bloody. 

“What in heavens...Nana, Nana look at me.” He curls a bloody hand around Jaemin’s cheek. Jaemin is a sobbing mess, but he still manages to land a punch on Renjun’s nose. 

“Ow, fucking hell!” He slaps him hard and calls his name again. “It’s Renjun. Renjun Renjun Renjun.” 

Still thrashing. He bites his lip and changes tracks, switching to the contemporary Henan dialect and hopes that it’s enough.

“Nana, it’s me, Renjun. Renjun the witch. You need to wake up. Li Li is gone.” He doesn’t quite know the word for shaman, so he uses witch instead. 

Jaemin stills and cracks open an eye. “R-Renjun?”

“Yes.” He swipes a tear away from under Jaemin’s eye. “You need to calm down, or you’ll lose Li Li. Where is she now? You need to call for her, but only when you’re calm enough yourself.”

He’s half-sitting on Jaemin, body crouched over him, like he’s shielding him from the sand whipping about them. Renjun can taste sand in his mouth, but any pain or natural disaster whirling around them is moot now, because Jaemin needs to take control of this dream-memory soon, before they lose the spirit to madness. 

Jaemin whimpers as he looks about, eyes glazed over in pain. “The Shang soldiers...”

“They were in your head,” Renjun whispers, eyes soft and hands even softer when they trace Jaemin’s forehead, brushing sand from his eyelashes. 

“The pain is imaginary. It’s nothing. There, see? All healed. All gone.” Renjun tugs at Jaemin’s shirt and presses the bare skin there. The blood is gone; there’s no sign of any torn flesh or bloodied clothes. 

Jaemin blinks. “Not real...” He murmurs. “That’s never happened to me before...”

“There’s a first for everything,” Renjun says wryly, and makes to stand. “Come on, let’s find Li Li. You got most of her story already, you just need to finish it.”

Jaemin suddenly looks stricken. 

“You _can_. Nana, you can finish this.” Renjun says, dawning on him that Jaemin is afraid. “I’ll stay here with you all the way, until you’re done. Okay?”

He slides his hand into Jaemin’s and squeezes it encouragingly. 

Jaemin squeezes back, more unconsciously than not, and it doesn’t matter that they started out on the wrong foot, that Renjun will probably still be more of an enemy than a friend later. Right now, he needs him, and Jaemin finds that he’s relieved to have him here as a companion.

***

Doyoung catches wind of what had happened during the fourth reading and had immediately demanded a meeting earlier than their usual regroup just before dusk.

Really, there had been nothing much for them to report, but Jaemin figures that Doyoung probably wanted to see if Youngho would go off into his weird trance-state again, which he thankfully hadn’t. He’d released them after hearing a summary from Jaemin, and they were now walking downstairs to catch an early dinner.

“Ridiculous,” Ten mumbles at their table after the meeting. “Utterly ridiculous. This was supposed to be my afternoon nap time.” He blusters into Youngho’s shoulder. 

Renjun looks at Minhyung, disgust plain in his eyes. Minhyung only laughs. 

“Doyoung only took ten extra minutes,” Jaemin points out. 

Ten wails even louder. 

“Would you please shut up?” Renjun scrubs his eyes, pressing his fingers into his temples. 

“Renjun.” Taeil sends him a scolding look. 

“There’s pork belly today,” Youngho whispers into Ten’s ear. He pats his head, which only makes Ten nestle further into the touch. 

“Cool, I’m starved,” Minhyung says, just as the kitchen staff come by balancing trays holding bowls of pork belly strips atop a mound of Japanese rice. 

They all chorus thank-yous to the staff, who only bow and shuffle back into the kitchens. 

“What did you guys do today?” Jaemin asks the other three. 

“Practiced writing out the oracle script and mapped out the locations of all the known bones,” Taeil answers. “There are a few on loan in museums around the world. We’re making contact with our people over there to see if they’re able to get a sense of which ones are human and if we can have them flown here.”

“Hmm. I hadn’t thought about other Yin ruins being located all over the world,” Renjun says. He tucks into the rice bowl, chewing on the strips of meat, cheek bulging from stuffing two strips in at once.

“Of course you didn’t,” Minhyung says, but not unkindly. “You only care about your Rubik’s cube when you’re not dreamwalking.”

“About that cube. All the sides are black?” Jaemin notes, glancing at the cube resting next to Renjun’s bowl at the table. He’s noticed that it’s never out of his sight. 

A smirk grows on Renjun’s face. 

“They’re different shades.” He can hear the smugness coating his low voice. 

“Of course they are,” Jaemin says, not seeing it at all. 

“Of course they are.” Renjun parrots back to him exactly how Jaemin would have expected - annoyingly cocky. 

“Don’t mind him,” Minhyung says around a mouthful of rice. “He just likes to show off. But the shades are really all different, but minute enough that it’s hard for the regular human eye to differentiate.” 

Ten picks it up, ignoring a noise of protest from Renjun. He begins to spin it between his fingers. “Hmmm. It’s clear as day to me.”

“That’s great, but I never said you could touch it,” Renjun growls, grabbing his arm hard enough to bruise to pry it out of his hand. 

Ten lets go, but uses his freed-up hand to drag a long line of scratches down Renjun’s lower arm. He really is exactly like a cat, Jaemin thinks, too shocked to really think anything else. 

Renjun yells in pain, and if Youngho hadn’t been quick enough to yank Ten backwards, and Minhyung fast enough to catch Renjun’s hand mid-air, there would surely have been some sort of altercation.

“Enough!” Taeil hisses through clenched teeth. “You’re behaving like children. I won’t hesitate to have Doyoung switch the task force members if I really need to.”

“I’m not apologising,” Ten says sulkily behind Youngho’s shoulder. 

“If it’s insincere, I’d rather you not,” Taeil sighs. “But as the two of you are on the same working team, I’d ask that you _please_ conduct yourselves in a manner befitting your position. Doyoung did not assign you these roles randomly.”

Renjun crosses his arms over his chest. “So you mean Ten can’t be switched out with Youngho? They practically have the same abilities.”

Jaemin pales, but the group is too focused on getting the two of them to calm down to really notice.

“Doyoung specifically indicated that there be no swap-outs.” Minhyung answers for him, while Taeil frowns, as if he doesn’t know the reason himself. Jaemin relaxes, relieved to see that Doyoung had kept his promise after all.

“Fuck.” Renjun swears, but he looks at Ten. “Fine. I’ll keep my temper, if he doesn’t touch my cube ever again.”

Ten’s eyes are beady but otherwise mirrors the albeit shaky olive branch with a nod.

“Thank god,” Minhyung murmurs under his breath. He pats Renjun on the back. “You’re really too fucking hot-tempered.”

“Fuck off,” Renjun says lightly. He taps a finger on the cube as if to reassure himself that it’s there, then he’s picking up his chopsticks, focused solely on chomping down his dinner.

“Rude.” Minhyung says under his breath. Then he turns to address the group in general. “Guys, how about we go out riding tomorrow? Get to know each other outside of our mission? Weather’s supposed to be nice and balmy. How about it?”

“Who even uses the word balmy anymore?” Jaemin says incredulously, at the same time that Renjun murmurs “Only old men who golf on Sunday mornings say balmy.”

Minhyung stares at the two of them, while both look at each other, finding an unexpected ally in the other in that minute. 

“I don’t know what Doyoung was thinking, putting you two together." Jaemin privately agrees. They were like fires being stoked, bound to erupt into hot flames at just a tiny spark. "If you’re not busy going at each other's throats, I can see you ganging up on me all the time,” he whines.

Jaemin looks away, not wanting to see Renjun's expression.

“Riding sounds nice.” Ten and Youngho speak in unison. 

Taeil shakes his head. “I’ll be going into town for other work. You guys go on without me. After all, wouldn’t want you to miss the _balmy_ weather.”

Jaemin cackles, pulling his half-eaten bowl towards him, and wonders for the hundredth time what Jeno sees in Lee Minhyung.

***

Today’s weather, is well, balmy.

Jaemin has to admit that there isn’t any other apt word, now that Minhyung’s gone and planted that word in his brain. Fucking hell.

He’d made sure to invite Jeno, because he knows Jeno would never have spoken to him ever again if he hadn’t. _Look at me, fucking wingman of the year_ , he whispers to his reflection as he pulls on his riding breeches and straightens to brush the knots out of his long fringe. It’s long enough now to poke into his eyes. He hadn’t cut it before leaving for China.

There’s a knock at his door. “Nana, you ready?” Jeno’s voice is bright and sunny, too much for seven in the morning.

“Coming,” he calls back, and sticks a hunting knife into his sock. You never know what might happen out in the wilderness.

Jaemin emerges from his room, the shamans’ green cloak wrapped around his body, helpfully supplied by Jeno because Jaemin hadn’t brought anything for riding because he’d thought they were going to remain in Anyang.

“Morning!” Jeno chirps.

“Please tell me that we’re going to get coffee first,” he yawns into his palm.

“Of course! Mark said we’d be riding out just before eight.”

Jaemin groans. “I could have slept in for an extra half hour.”

“But you need to properly digest your breakfast,” Jeno begins. He’s got on riding gloves too, and hands a pair to Jaemin. He pulls it on gratefully.

“Not if I’m just having coffee.” 

Jeno looks scandalised, so Jaemin pats his head. “We can pack food to bring along, right?”

“Yeap. I asked the cooks to prepare some buns, fruits, and bottles of water. I would have packed thermos flasks, but I thought they might’ve been too heavy to lug.”

Jaemin shrugs. He’d actually packed whole tupperwares of kimchi pancakes, stir-fried noodles, and flasks of hot tea when he’d ridden with Taeyong and Doyoung in the Korean countryside. But he doesn’t mention it. “Sounds great,” he says instead.

Jeno beams and chatters all the way to the dining hall, telling Jaemin about how he’d spent his day yesterday at the little lake by the valley, learning how to meditate and get in touch with the water spirits that resided there.

Ah, so his affinity is water, Jaemin realises. It does suit him nicely. Easygoing, calming, adaptable, like the waves that thrummed along the Yellow Sea. He wonders whether Jeno ever got angry, and how he’d be like. Maybe like the choppy waters of Jeju? 

“…So I said to Jisung, what do you know? You’re only a baby, not even of age yet. And then Chenle just started this giant water fight, and this humongous tide came out of nowhere, and before you know it, our scrolls and robes were all soaked. But it was really fun!” Jeno prattles on, and Jaemin realises he’d missed the first half of the story.

“Uh,” he tries to recover. “Chenle?”

“Yeah,” Jeno hums. “He’s from Shanghai, but it’s easier to be an apprentice-in-training in the capital. Shanghai’s too crowded with tourists and foreigners. Besides, Beijing has more cultural history. Easier for us shamans to get in touch with our roots.”

“Oh. They sound like a fun bunch.” Jaemin smiles at him. They’ve reached the buffet table, and Jaemin quickly pours himself two cups of coffee and pinches a piece of fried butter cake to appease Jeno.

“Hi,” Jaemin murmurs into his cup as he locates Renjun. 

“Mmm,” Renjun mumbles into his arms, face smushed into them. 

Jaemin had quickly surmised from their daily sessions together that neither Renjun nor Ten were morning people, which was why they’d secretly scheduled their meetings to begin at ten instead of Doyoung’s designated eight o’clock. What he didn't know wouldn't hurt him.

“I don’t know why I agreed to this,” Ten complains as he plops himself onto the bench. “Youngho, why did I agree to this?”

Youngho smiles at him fondly, studying his nails that have been painted a bright neon green. “We can nap in the forest.”

Ten brightens considerably. “We cannnnn,” he says, like he’s only just realised this himself, dragging out the last syllable. “Yay.”

“Morning guys! Have you eaten breakfast?” Minhyung is a ray of sunshine, and Jaemin almost speaks it into existence, almost says that it’s hurting his eyes, driving needles into his brain.

“Mmm,” Renjun mumbles again.

Minhyung laughs, rustling his hair. “I got the cooks to pack some Korean food, in addition to the Beijing snacks - thanks for that, Jeno, good thinking.”

A faint pink blush travels up his cheeks. “It was nothing! I just thought it’d be lighter if we just carried snacks.”

Jaemin thanks the heavens for Minhyung, because his stomach had grumbled at the mention of Korean food. A spike of guilt settles in his gut at the food he’d wasted his first night here.

“Oh thank god,” Renjun says, speaking the words that Jaemin was thinking. “I’m about to go stir-crazy from all this Chinese food.”

Jeno manages not to look too offended.

“You’re Chinese,” Youngho points out.

“But a lot of people in Jilin are ethnically Korean, right?” Jaemin blurts out.

That makes Renjun’s eyes widen. “You know I’m from Jilin?”

“Um. Jeno mentioned it in passing.”

Renjun gives him an odd look, mouth drawn half-open, but an over-eager Minhyung is already steering them to get up and make for the stables, one hand pressed against Renjun’s back.

Jaemin loops an arm over Jeno’s shoulder, squeezing it. “C’mon. Excited?”

His smile comes back, and he nods vigorously. Jaemin’s heart melts at how fond he’s become of him in such a short span of time. 

When they reach the stables, Minhyung has already got five horses saddled up, ready for their morning ride through the valley and a trek through the forest beyond. He’s chosen horses that are strong and sturdy, and not too temperamental. Jaemin had learnt to recognise these from his riding sessions with Jaehyun in Seoul, and Taeil in Kaesong. And of course with Doyoung and Taeyong.

The white horse predictable goes to Minhyung - what a typical shaman, Jaemin observes. 

Ten hoists himself onto a grey one, and Youngho slots in behind him, drawing the reins over Ten’s body. “We ride together,” he explains quite redundantly, seeing as Minhyung had arranged for only five horses, meaning he’d clearly known that they would be sharing one.

This is when Jaemin clearly sees the golden shaman boy emerge, these instances of astute perceptiveness. 

A brown with white spots trots over to Renjun, nuzzling into his palm. Jaemin pushes Jeno towards the one with a dark brown coat. He’d noticed that Minhyung had gestured to the black one for Jaemin himself, so it’s obvious that this one was with a rookie rider in mind.

Jaemin leaps onto his horse with little effort, settling in comfortably into the saddle. “Hello beautiful,” he whispers into its side, pressing his face into its mane, which is a silky shade of charcoal. His horse neighs, like its saying hello too.

“Minhyung.” Jaemin straightens, directing his horse to trot over to him. “I think we should ride in pairs. You and Jeno, me and Renjun. Jeno’s still a newbie to riding - I think it’ll be better if you took him under his wing. Show him the ropes, you know? I would, but I’d make a poor teacher. He’s honestly safer with you.”

Jaemin looks to Jeno briefly, feeling Renjun’s burning glare making holes in his back. 

Minhyung nods kindly. Jeno looks terrified.

“Sure. This your first time riding a horse, Jeno?”

Jeno gulps, speaking around the lump in his throat. “Second. So I’m not very good. Sorry.”

“That’s okay. We’ll take the lead, go slow. Renjun, Nana, you guys behind me, and Youngho…” Minhyung trails off, frowning as he realises that the last two in their group are nowhere to be seen. 

“Where did they go?” 

Jaemin looks around. It’s like they’d disappeared into thin air. “I don’t think they ever intended to ride with us,” he says, a little amused.

A dash of annoyance flicks onto Minhyung’s face, and when he shakes his head in resignation, his silver hair catches the morning sunlight. Jaemin really, really hates his hair.

“God. Okay, you know what, let’s just carry on,” Renjun huffs. “Who the fuck cares about those two? Let’s leave them to fuck in the forest.”

“Renjun!” Minhyung’s jaw drops.

“What? Don’t tell me you weren’t thinking the same thing.”

“I…” Minhyung drops his shoulders, tugging at his reins instead. “Whatever. Let’s go. Jeno?”

Jeno beams, bouncing on his saddle, excitement coming off him in waves. Jaemin meets his eyes and winks. Jeno gives him a meaningful glare but ducks his head. He hadn’t kissed him again since that first time, and Jaemin wonders if he ever will. At the very least, Minhyung is actually talking to Jeno without any prompting now.

“Are you coming, Archiver?” Renjun calls. “Or are you going to slow us down?”

Jaemin rolls his eyes and slaps his reins lightly against his horse. His competitive spirit blazes. “Race you to the edge, dreamwalker.”

“Guys, wait -”

But the two of them are already off, chasing each other’s tails as they gun for the mouth of the forest.

Minhyung glances at Jeno, frustration mounting. “This is why Doyoung never asks them to accompany him on his hunts.”

Jeno bravely lifts a hand to pat Minhyung’s shoulder, fingers shaky. “At least we can take it slow?”

Minhyung breaks into a smile. “Yeah. Shall we?”

***

It’s only when he’s deep in the forest that Jaemin comes to the startling realisation that maybe this had been a bad idea after all.

He’d lost Renjun amidst the expanse of sprawling trees, and he doesn’t even know when that had been. 

It’s like time stops, in forests.

Red, everywhere. The fog has returned in full force. That same high-pitched whistling has taken up again, and Jaemin should be used to this by now, but each time seems different, even though it’s exactly the same.

His grip on his horse’s mane is a death grip, like if he wasn’t holding onto something from the real world, he’d lose himself in this awful fog-dream.

_Jaemin. Jaeminnnnn._

Fuck. FuckFuckFuck. Not now. 

He squeezes his eyes shut, clutching at the clear quartz pendant around his throat. When he opens his eyes, those symbols are branded on each tree, the same one as in that very first dream. His throat seizes up, and it becomes painful to breathe.

He falls off his horse when it bucks and he claws at his neck simultaneously, eyes bulging as he gasps and heaves for oxygen. He spots the bird - that damned bird - flitting into his vision, near enough to touch.

_Jaemin. Come._

“No, fuck you.” He whispers through choked inhales. “Get out of my head!”

_Let me help you, Jaemin._

“NO!” He tries to roar, but each gasp leaves him even more breathless. His blood is rushing hotly in his ears, heartbeat picking up in the building panic. 

A strong hand clamps around his arm, and he feels a sting on his cheek. Then he hears his name being called, and then a string of muddied words in first Korean, then Chinese.

“What…”

“Nana, what the fuck? What the fuck happened?”

It’s Renjun, oh thank the heavens, it’s Renjun. He rushes up to wrap Renjun in a tight hug.

“Renjun, thank fuck,” he sobs into his ear. He can breathe easily now, but his throat still has a shadow of a burn when he inhales.

“What happened?” 

Jaemin shakes his head, hands laced around his wrists and locked around Renjun’s neck, refusing to let go.

But Renjun is nothing but frustratingly stubborn. “Nana.” He forces Jaemin back. “Was it a spirit? Another dream-memory?”

Jaemin nods, deciding that this is easier than trying to explain ridiculous stories about red fogs and ghost-birds calling his name.

“Okay,” Renjun nods. “Okay. But you’re okay now?”

Jaemin just nods. It’s too much to speak now. He motions to the ground and lies his head on the grass, closing his eyes off to the light streaming through the thick leaves overhead. It's quiet for a bit, and then Renjun coughs.

“Huh. Guess even the best Archiver in South Korea isn't all that he's made out to be."

That makes Jaemin sit up, body braced by his arms pushing him up from behind. "I would have gotten it under control if I had a couple more minutes," he says hotly.

Renjun cracks out a _hah!_ but he hears Renjun sigh in relief before joining him on the ground.

"You scared me.” Renjun admits. "I thought it was going to be like that fourth bone all over again." He's murmuring softly, but Jaemin catches it. He opens his eyes to find Renjun’s face is just inches from his.

“It’s not like I do it on purpose,” he grumbles. “It just happens.”

Renjun doesn’t say anything, just blinks and stares back into his eyes, the two of them holding each other’s gazes, waiting for the other to crack. The black lightning mark under his left eye gleams. Jaemin itches to run his fingers over it. But that's not how Archivers conduct themselves.

So it’s Jaemin who breaks. 

He looks aways as he sits up, fumbling for the backpack still slung around his shoulders, and is reminded of his horse. He glances around the greenery closing in around them, but Renjun puts a hand on his.

“Your horse is there. Don’t worry, it hasn’t run away.”

He relaxes, and pulls his sketchpad out of his bag. 

“Are you going to draw what you saw just now?” Renjun asks, scooting closer.

Jaemin shakes his head. “No. Just adding on to one of the drawings from yesterday. I remembered something.”

“Do you always speak to them like you’re one of them? Pretending to be someone from their time?”

Jaemin nods slowly, like he’s answering him but with only half his attention. He adds what looks like a squiggle to the latest sheet. 

“It helps if they feel like you’re someone familiar. Helps them to talk more.”

“Isn’t that deception?” 

Jaemin stops drawing for a second and turns to him. “Who would you be more likely to tell your story to? A total stranger or someone who seems like they’ve gone through something similar?”

Renjun doesn’t answer, and Jaemin nods. “That’s what I thought.”

“Okay, touché. Why did you become an Archiver?”

Jaemin sighs and sets down his pen. “My family were all Whisperers. It’s not something you can just become. It’s passed down. In the blood, or so they say.”

Renjun nods in understanding, and Jaemin knows that it works similarly for shamans. Shamans were called, by the spirits, or something along those lines. You couldn’t really choose either. You were chosen.

“What about you?” He nudges him gently.

Renjun rearranges himself into a more comfortable position, folding his hands into his lap.

“I dreamed about it. Someone came to me in a dream, and I couldn’t ignore it. When I tried to, the dreams got scarier and I’d go into a kind of trance in the middle of the day. Finally, my mom sent me to a local temple and they just…they looked at me and just _knew_. I didn’t know what they were talking about, of course. They suggested that I stay the night, and they contacted the Jilin-based shamans, and the rest is history. I packed my bags that very week, said goodbye to my birth family and here I am, ten years later.”

“Just like that?” Jaemin breathes. He can’t imagine being forced to leave behind everything and everyone he’d known, especially his family. He counts himself lucky that Whisperers’ abilities were passed down within families.

“Yup.” Renjun nods. “It was hard at first, but after a while you get why you need to leave. You become different. Better to go somewhere where you can be yourself, where your abilities aren’t looked at like some freak of nature.”

That last part sounds scarily like something Doyoung would say, like it’s been drummed into every shaman who’s had to leave their home.

“Wow. But how did you realise you could dreamwalk?”

Renjun’s fingers twitch, and Jaemin notices that his cube isn’t on his person. 

“Doyoung. Before he was appointed the leader in South Chungcheong, he happened to be doing a tour of the coastal cities in China with Taeyong. It was part of his training or something. When we came out to greet him, he just looked at me and said _dreamwalker_.”

Jaemin raises his brows. “How did…how did he know?”

Renjun shrugs. “He’s got a talent for that. I guess it’s his own special ability. He and Taeyong are kind of similar. Taeyong can sense our kind,” - here, Jaemin thinks back to how he’d known that Ten was rounding the corner that day of their very first meeting - “and Doyoung can sense our abilities. They’re really secretive about it though, so we don’t really know the how.”

“So…not every shaman has abilities?” He wonders why he’d never thought to ask Taeil before, but maybe it had been because he’d naturally assumed that all shamans were imbued with some extra power.

“No. Every shaman is usually able to act as the in-between for spirits and mortals. Like those water or mountain spirits. You know, like the shamans of old, the ones you probably hear about where we intercede on the living’s behalf, or where we tell daily fortunes. Something like what you see on those TV dramas, on a really basic level.”

He rummages in his pockets and draws out the black cube. He looks more at peace now, automatically. “But for some, we have something extra. Like well, me. Able to walk in dreams. Or the twins - seems like half their body is actually permanently inhabited by a spirit. Must be why they’re a little odd.”

Jaemin certainly had not known that. 

Renjun twirls the cube between his fingers, lithe and slender as he spins the sides. For some reason, Jaemin is able to make out a bird inscribed on one side.

“Your spirit animal....is a bird?”

The glyph seems to ripple on Renjun’s cube, taunting and mesmerising all at once, like that ghost-bird, and it’s like he’s back in the forest all over again. 

“You know about our spirit animals?”

Jaemin averts his eyes to anywhere but where the bird is, to rest on a spot of brown soil on Renjun’s otherwise pristine white tee. 

“Yeah. Taeil told me about it.”

Renjun runs his fingers over the mark affectionately. “It’s a crane, actually. But to show unity we just ink the oracle script for bird, if we want to have it sketched in anywhere.”

Jaemin’s forehead wrinkles. “But isn’t there a separate word for birds like chicken and phoenix? So there should be one for crane.”

“You really do know your oracle script,” Renjun says, impressed.

“I was always interested to learn the script and the language, even though I knew that we weren’t supposed to ever touch one of them." Jaemin ducks his head shyly.

“It was my great-great-grandfather who discovered the oracles bones at Yinxu when he was digging at one of the sites,” he continues proudly. “The bones of the royalty spoke to him, whispered something about dragon bones and fortune-telling, and the Guangxu Emperor dispatched a team of archaeologists to the site to dig it up. Guess the interest runs in the family.”

“In 1899?” 

“Yeah. We were gifted the original Dunhuang map by the Chinese government in gratitude. It hangs in our Seoul base now.”

“That’s kind of...amazing.” Renjun says, and Jaemin laughs. 

“You don’t have to give me compliments if you’re going to sound that reluctant.”

“Sorry. Occupational hazard to be immediately nasty to any Whisperer. But I really do think it’s amazing. Honest.”

Jaemin nods. At least he’s honest. “It’s alright. So, why a crane?”

“It’s my family insignia. We get a lot of migratory birds in Jilin, because we’re so close to the coast. They’d land in the Songhua Lake, near my family-run ski resort. We run it as a guise to occupy the mountainous areas,” he explains. 

“Anyway, most of the birds would be Siberian cranes, and they would pester the tourists to bits. But then one day, my ancestors went down among the flock and waded into the river to calm them down, and it actually worked. They kept to the waters, and kept off the main resort land. From then onwards, that became my family’s spirit animal.”

Jaemin hadn’t realised that he’d begun to lean closer until he sees his own hands hovering right above the cube. He remembers Renjun’s rather animalistic reaction to Ten and moves his hands away.

Renjun pauses, looking between Jaemin and the cube. Then he’s extending his palm out, cube in hand. “You can touch it.”

“No, it’s okay -”

Renjun takes his hand, placing the cube in it. “It won’t burn you, Nana.”

The cube is cold to the touch, and it’s made of a denser material, definitely not plastic. 

“Titanium,” Renjun says, tapping one side with a nail, making a clear, click-clack sound. “Hardy and scratch-proof.”

Jaemin twists one side slowly and twists it back in place, not wanting to disrupt any pattern. “Why do you carry this on you all the time?”

Renjun must have been expecting the question. “It helps me focus my energy, or reorientate it.” Like Jaemin's crystals.

Jaemin swears that the bird moves on the cube.

“Do you.” He begins, and then stops. “Do you enter dreams as a crane?”

The more he thinks about it, the more the ghost-bird in his head seems to take on the form of a crane. Jaemin doesn’t know whether it’s self-projection on his part or an actual revelation. 

“For the most part, yes. It’s easier to enter as something smaller, and closer to nature. Taking on human form can be a bit of a shock to whoever we’re visiting in dreams, so we learn to shift into animals instead.”

“Oh. But what’s the reason for entering someone else’s dreams in the first place?”

Renjun screws up his nose as he ponders the question. “Usually, it’s to pass messages from the dead to their families. But that’s under their request, of course. If it isn’t that, then it’s likely that we slip into another’s dreams because we can sense some kind of connection or kinship. Like another shaman, or someone who possesses a power or energy that obviously means they’re more than human. When it’s the latter, it can be subconscious, so much so that we might not wholly be aware that we’re doing it ourselves.”

Oh. 

“Cool.” Jaemin cracks out. “Very cool.” He runs a hand over his brow, and it comes away clammy.

“Hey, are you okay?” Renjun asks, concern crossing over his features. 

When he takes a step closer, Jaemin takes a step back. 

“I’m fine. Just a little tired. Shall we go check on Minhyung and Jeno’s whereabouts? We kind of left them hanging.”

Renjun eyes him with suspicion but nods. “Yeah, we did, didn’t we.”

Jaemin laughs and brushes off the soil on his breeches. 

“I honestly don’t think Jeno minds though,” Renjun says, eyes glinting conspiratorially.

Jaemin finds himself smiling at him, shoulders shaking in silent laughter. “You took the words right out my mouth.”

***

Jaehyun arrives at the guesthouse a day later, just before midnight, hair askew and massive eyebags lining the underside of his eyes. 

He’s donning the uniform the Archivers wear when on official business - midnight blue three-piece suit - a cobalt blue feather tucked into a grey fedora. A blue-green fluorite around his neck is his only personal ornament - a gift from Jaemin when he’d been promoted as Head Archiver for their branch.

“Jaehyun!” Jaemin flies across the room, barrelling into his chest, wrapping two arms around his neck. He burrows his nose into the side of his neck.

Jaehyun laughs and reciprocates the gesture. “My little Whisperer,” he says into Jaemin’s hair. “All grown up now, aren’t you, after just a week here?”

Doyoung smiles slightly from where he’s propped himself against the edge of his desk.

“He certainly caused quite a stir during breakfast this morning. Started screaming something about a fog.”

Jaemin casts his eyes downward to avoid looking into Jaehyun’s eyes. He’d seen it again - that red fog descending into the dining hall, and the bird had been there again too, cawing and singing Jaemin’s name in its reedy voice.

“What fog?” Jaehyun asks sharply, lifting Jaemin’s chin up with his thumb. “What fog, Nana?”

It’s hard, to articulate a lie. Jaehyun knows his tics too well.

“Just a weird dream I’ve been having,” he murmurs, forcing his chin away from Jaehyun’s grip.

Jaehyun’s worry only intensifies at that.

“What dream? Tell me about it.”

Jaemin finds himself looking to Doyoung, an unconscious plea for help.

“Does this have something to do with why you called me here?” Jaehyun accuses as he turns on Doyoung.

“Maybe if you weren’t so adversarial, I’d actually want to tell you,” Doyoung quips from where he’s still parked haughtily on the desk.

“It must be serious, if even Taeyong isn’t here.” Jaehyun guesses, and that makes Jaemin jump, because that hadn’t even crossed his mind. 

Judging by Doyoung’s expression, Jaehyun is right. 

“I think that Nana might possess other abilities,” Doyoung says, watching Jaehyun’s reaction like a hawk watching its prey. “Non-Whisperer-like abilities. A bit more shaman in nature,” he clarifies.

Jaehyun just raises a brow. “Oh?”

Jaemin sucks in a breath, shoulders hiking up anxiously.

“ _Oh?_ Really? That’s all you have to say?” Doyoung scoffs.

Jaemin is very pleased to see Jaehyun roll his eyes.

“Please, Doyoung, everybody knows you have a flair for the dramatic. Just because he’s one of the best Archivers around doesn’t mean that his heightened abilities equal being a shaman. I think it’s going to take more than him slipping into dream-trances to be considered a shaman. He’s been doing that for years.” Jaehyun looks back at Jaemin, sending him a reassuring glance.

The knot in Jaemin’s stomach loosens, and he smiles back.

Doyoung purses his lips but composes himself before replying. “Youngho seemed to think differently.”

Jaehyun’s eyes narrow, and the skin around it tightens. “Youngho babbles nonsense half of the time. I’m sure he just gave you a riddle that you couldn’t understand.”

There’s a palpable tension in the room. Jaemin holds his breath as he looks at Doyoung. 

“And the other half of the time, he makes complete sense,” he shoots back.

“And was this one of the times? Can you say that you know that for sure?”

Doyoung scowls, his fingers turning white as they grip the edge of his desk.

Jaehyun looks a little triumphant. He turns to Jaemin and smiles. “Nana, why don’t you go back to your rooms first? I need to go over some documents with Doyoung. We can have breakfast together in the morning?”

“Uh, sure. Goodnight Jaehyun, Doyoung.”

Doyoung grunts, and Jaehyun gives him a little wave with his fingers.

Jaemin is halfway across the hall when he remembers that he’d forgotten to collect the transcriptions of this morning’s readings from Doyoung after this afternoon’s meeting.

“Shit,” Jaemin curses, and backpedals to Doyoung’s room, groaning internally at having to climb the stairs all over again. He reaches the door, finding it ajar. Hmm, but he’d remembered that he’d closed it properly earlier.

“You knew,” he hears Doyoung whisper. “I thought you might.”

“Knew what?” Taeyong’s voice filters through, and Jaemin realises why the door had been left ajar. Taeyong had a tendency to be this brand of clumsy. He presses his ear closer to the gap, careful not to jostle the knob.

“Knew that Jaemin might be one of us,” Doyoung says grimly. “How long have you known?”

From his poor vantage point, he can just about make out Jaehyun loosening his cravat and unbuttoning his vest, sliding it off and draping it over his luggage. 

“Doyoung.” Taeyong’s voice is deathly calm when he speaks his name. “You didn’t tell me.”

“Please.” Doyung coughs into his tea. “Spare me, Taeyong. I wasn’t sure myself, until Jaehyun here confirmed it earlier.”

Jaemin covers his mouth with his hand to drown out the sharp inhale.

Taeyong flicks his eyes to Jaehyun. “How did you know? _When_ did you know?”

“Since he started dabbling in crystals. So I’d say about five years ago.”

 _Before I became an Archiver_ , Jaemin thinks to himself.

“Five years…”

“Yes,” Jaehyun says, slipping his hands into his trouser pockets, something he did when he was trying to take control of situations. Or regain it. 

“When he was still a Collector. It was when we were on holiday in South Gyeongsang. He suddenly mentioned something about wanting to go to the Jasujeong Caves, you remember that, Doyoung? You were in the area yourself, doing readings.”

Doyoung nods, gesturing impatiently for him to continue.

“When we got there, he started talking to himself, but I quickly realised that he was talking to some spirits whose bones had been buried deep in the caves. And the strangest thing happened when he accidentally touched the amethyst crystals along the cave walls - he screamed and started crying for help, shouting about being buried under a pile of rocks, and then he blacked out.”

Jaemin stares at the three of them. He _had_ forgotten about that, possibly his mind blocking out that horrible experience. He’d thought his first memory of crystals had been when Jaehyun had presented him with an amethyst ring for his birthday, as a reminder of Jaehyun because it was Jaehyun’s birthstone.

“I thought over it for weeks after, and took him out for random trips to museums. Each time, I’d slip a crystal into his pocket. On days where I didn’t, he’d usually not talk about having heard any whisperings. On days that I did, he would tell me that he’d hear something. That was when I started petitioning to the Council and encouraging him to become an Archiver.”

It’s a lot to take in - Jaehyun figuring it out and keeping it to himself for the past five years. Jung Jaehyun, his mentor, his confidante. 

His knees give way to the floor, and he hopes that he hadn’t made much sound.

“Clever,” Doyoung remarks, lifting his cup of tea to his lips. “I’ve got to hand it to you, Jung Yoonoh. You might make a gifted talent spotter yet. Not as good as me, but you’re on way.”

Jaehyun scoffs. “No need to praise me just yet. Jaemin’s not going to want to leave with you to go back to Wolseongbong. He’ll insist that he’s just an Archiver.”

Doyoung lifts a brow. “I know it's not the usual practice, but what if you went with him?”

Jaemin can picture Jaehyun giving him a look that conveys something like _'seriously?'_ “Firstly, he would never go to Wolseongbong. Secondly, I’m not like you,” Jaehyun says, and he says it like it’s poison. Like how a Whisperer would when thinking about fraternising with shamans. “I’ll be damned if I step foot into your mountains.”

“What if he does want to come with me? You would give up your best student to Wolseongbong?”

Jaehyun shakes his head. “Leave him be, Doyoung. He only wants to document the bones to study their language. Let him be a true Archiver. Don’t give him this other path. He doesn’t want it, does he?”

Well, Jaehyun certainly knows Jaemin well. And it’s clear that Jaehyun knows Doyoung extremely well, too.

Taeyong wraps a hand around Doyoung’s. “You told Jaemin about this?”

Doyoung nods. “I…discussed it with him. He didn’t take it too well.”

Jaehyun nods, and his hands are back in his pockets. “I told you, leave him alone. Let him do what he came here for, and let him go home. He’s not interested in exploring other abilities.”

Doyoung starts to argue, but Taeyong shushes him with a squeeze of his hand. “I think that’s enough for tonight, Doyoung. Jaehyun’s had a long journey - he should get some rest. Hmm?”

Jaehyun smiles at him gratefully. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Goodnight.”

When Jaehyun picks up his things, Jaemin remembers that he’s still on the floor, sitting pretty and perfectly discoverable. He scrambles to his feet as quietly as he can and flattens himself into an archway down the corridor.

He sees Jaehyun close the door, letting the tiredness show in the sag of his shoulders only after he’s out of sight of the shamans. His heart melts at the picture, but he can’t reveal himself here.

About five minutes tick by, and he thinks that it’s safe to escape back to his rooms. But then Doyoung’s door is opening, and Jaemin’s heart skips again.

_God, why can’t they just let me leave?_

“He’s lost.” 

It’s Doyoung’s voice.

“Yes, but he doesn't want to be like one of us, Doyoung.”

“He won't have a choice. Like we didn't have a choice.”

Taeyong looks at him, eyes boring into his, trying to read him in a way that no one can, and will never be able to. “I can't believe you kept this from me, Dongyoung.”

“I wish you wouldn’t call me that,” Doyoung says, wrinkling his nose ruefully.

“Why not? It’s what Jaehyun calls you.”

“It’s different. He grew up with me.”

Jaemin can’t believe what he’s hearing. More surprises upon surprises tonight, it seems.

“And eleven years of this isn’t counted as growing up together?”

“You know that’s not what I meant.” Doyoung steps back, out of Taeyong’s reach. Out of reach of his abilities so that he can’t break through his mental walls.

“Doyoung, he’s an Archiver. He belongs with them. He comes from a family of Whisperers.”

“He belongs here,” Doyoung answers insistently. Jaemin is discovering a lot of new sides to the leader of the South Korean faction during this trip.

“Only because you think he could help us find the ability to be Whisperers too, or prove that we’re not just shamans.”

Doyoung scrunches his forehead in annoyance. “You think that’s why I’m fighting for him to be here?”

“I know that’s why you’re fighting for him to be here. You’ve always been obsessed with those bone hunters. And now you have one who just landed in your lap, with the ability to speak the language of the Shang people. You’re not going to let it go. I know you.”

“He could help us understand why some of us are the way we are,” Doyoung grips his hair with both hands, yanking at the strands, trying but failing to convince Taeyong to come around. 

“We’re living a lie, Taeyong. We’ll never be the shamans that people expect us to be. You and I and Donghyuck…and Shotaro, and Chenle, and Jisung and Sungchan…the twins…Renjun…we’ve just been hiding behind the name, masking our abilities as enhanced powers gifted to shamans. We can’t - I can’t - keep doing this anymore.”

Taeyong grips both his arms above the elbows, steadying him. “Doyoung. We’ve been happy here. We’ve made a name for ourselves. We made it as the leaders of the South Korean shamans, even though we’re not from the main Seoul clan. So what if we can do more than intervene for people by speaking through spirits? We don’t need to mend what isn’t broken.”

“I can start over anywhere. I've done it before, and I can do it again." There's a fire in his eyes that burns bright and hot, the kind that comes from being sliced open in the same place over and over again.

Taeyong makes a little scream in frustration. “You think Nana wants to start over? You think Jaehyun wants to lose his best Archiver? Jaehyun only cares about himself and about Nana. He allowed Nana to come here because he’d get access to the bones. He came here to see if that position would be jeopardised. He’s staying only because he’s known all along what we’ve only just found out - that Nana can channel the power of the spirits through his crystals. And he’s not going to have us steal him from him.”

Taeyong runs his hands up to Doyoung’s neck, cupping both sides of his face, tipping his head up.

“Neither of them care about ancestry or finding out more about why Nana is the way he is. They just want to bring back a whole new oracle script to their people and prove that they’re the best Whisperers they can be. Like how we prove we’re the best shamans when we’re able to speak with our Shang ancestors, bring back knowledge about their practices and medicine. Nothing more, nothing less.”

Doyoung drops his head onto Taeyong’s shoulder. “Jaemin won't be able to say no. Or if he does, there will be a price,” he whispers. “Taeyong, I don’t know what to do. I feel so lost myself.”

Taeyong’s arms come up to engulf Doyoung in a tight hug, dragging up and down the length of his back in soothing strokes. He sees him kiss his neck, and Jaemin’s face reddens. He shouldn’t be watching this private moment.

“Come to bed, darling. We’ll talk in the morning.”

Taeyong twines their fingers together, leading him to his rooms, and it dawns on Jaemin that they’ve been sharing _Taeyong’s_ rooms, not Doyoung’s.

***

Jaemin skips breakfast with Jaehyun, sending him a text to tell him that he’s stuck reading the bones from the morning, and could they catch up at dinner instead?

Jaehyun sends back a yes.

In truth, Jaemin doesn’t want to face anyone now, and Jaehyun in particular. He still needs time to process the conversation he’d eavesdropped on yesterday, and he knows that Jaehyun would see right through any put-on emotions now if he saw him. 

He avoids the dining hall completely, heading straight to their usual little meeting room to pour himself into his work. 

Renjun is already there but asleep, head lolling on his arms as usual. Three empty cups sit arranged on the table, and the kettle holds freshly boiled water. Jaemin smiles down at him fondly.

 _You don’t even know, do you?_ Jaemin thinks as he looks at Renjun, his features softened, all its hard edges lost in sleep. _You don’t even know what you really are._

He feels bold enough to push a strand of hair back from his face. There are still the vestiges of silver in there amidst his natural brown hair, so he’d probably stopped dying his hair silver a while back, unlike Minhyung.

When Renjun doesn’t stir, Jaemin finally gives in to the urge to touch his lightning tattoo under his eye.

“Nana?”

Jaemin whips around, putting a finger on his lips to Ten.

Ten looks like he’d rather clang pots together than zip his mouth, but he gives a begrudging nod instead and plops into the couch to doze off himself.

Jaemin collects a new set of bones, the stirrings of their combined murmurings filling him with excitement. This is his favourite part of the day, truthfully, when it’s just him and the bones.

He touches one, and his finger flares. He yelps, waving his hand and sucking it into his mouth to cool the burn.

“Oh my god,” Renjun groans from his corner. “What is it now?”

“Ten,” Jaemin stutters. “Ten, could you come here, please?”

Ten unfurls himself reluctantly from the couch but moves over dutifully, swiftly, because he can see just how serious Jaemin is. “What is it?”

“It burned me,” he whispers. “I think I’ll need your help with this one, Ten.”

Ten nods. “Renjun can only pull me into the memory once you’re in. So you need to go in first, to open the channel.”Jaemin’s face reflects pure panic.

“I’ll be right after you, I promise. Renjun, we’ll go in immediately, won’t we?” Ten soothes, running his hands over Jaemin’s hair repeatedly. Jaemin lets himself lean into it.

“Okay. Okay,” he says to himself. “Don’t take too long.” This he says to Renjun almost pleadingly.

Renjun squeezes his shoulder. “I’ll be right there, like Ten said.”

“Here goes nothing,” Jaemin whispers. When he touches the bone, the heat that travels up his arm is _scorching_. It feels like he’s placed his arm over a heap of flames.

It takes all his willpower to not scream. He bites down on his lip hard, until he draws blood. Distantly, he can hear Renjun snapping at Ten to say that he can’t go in yet, because Jaemin isn’t fully immersed in the memory. Shit.

“Hello,” Jaemin whispers. The Henan dialect comes to him so naturally now.

He lets his mind grope for the correct thing to say. Leaves it to his intuition. “It’s your little brother, Na-di. You’re hurting me. You don’t mean to hurt me, do you?”

Gods, the pain. He wraps his head around his surroundings, trying to bring the blurry memory into focus.

“Brother?” It’s a boy, a teenager. Probably on the precipice of adulthood. 

“Yes.” Jaemin answers, and when he comes into view, he can see that he’s in a house, and it’s on fire. The boy - his brother - wields a torch. Oh fuck, shit, fuck.

“Ge, did you set the house on fire?” Jaemin prods, slipping into his role as his younger brother, pushing through the pain to speak. 

_Come on, Renjun, come on. Where the fuck are you._

“I had to. Mama wouldn’t listen to me. She didn’t believe that I didn’t kill Auntie on purpose. It was the river gods. They spoke to me. Didi, don’t you believe me? You believe me, don’t you?”

Jaemin’s heart sinks. So this one was a shaman, no wonder it was a tough one. And Doyoung had been right after all - some shamans were - _are_ part of the collection of oracle bones.

“Tell me about the river gods again.” Jaemin tries to inject genuine excitement into his voice. “I love how you describe things.”

The boy - Yu Tian - relaxes a bit. When the memory of the river god comes to him, it comes to Jaemin too. His family playing at the river. His aunt throwing insults at them. Yu Tian getting angry in his mother’s stead. The river bubbles and boils, and then he screams, raising his hands, and a huge tidal wave rises above them and swallows just his aunt, pulling her into a watery grave. 

Oh crap. 

“You didn’t know you could do that,” Jaemin says. “But you did it on purpose. You meant to harm her.” 

Yu Tian brandishes the torch at him, and Jaemin is quick to allay him, both palms held up in surrender. “You meant to harm her, but you protected Mama. You did what you felt was right. You’re so strong, Ge. And the river gods. What did they say to you?”

“They said.” He gasps, the poisonous smoke starting to waft into both their lungs. Jaemin can feel it tickling his throat too, eyes watering from the smoke. “They asked me to come to them, they said I was like them, that they knew how to help me.” Jaemin feels his body turn cold at those familiar string of words. 

He hears the river gods’ voices tinkling in his ear, because he’s Yu Tian, in this memory. The fog is replaced with a light drizzle. Jaemin can taste how fresh it is on his tongue. _“Yu Tian. Yu Tian, comeeee.”_

“Nana.” Renjun coughs, appearing at the crumbling doorway, Ten in tow. “Nana, tell us what to do.”

“We need to stop him. Knock him out. Then the fire will stop,” Ten says, harried for once, but Jaemin stops him by the arm.

“Wait. He’s a shaman. His affinity is water, not fire.”

Ten shoves him off. “He’s fire, now. No longer water. Changed.”

Jaemin takes a moment to think about that, and thinks over Doyoung’s words whispered in secret yesterday. About how they were not really shamans. Something more. Maybe Yu Tian was, too.

He spins around, yanking Ten back by grabbing the back of his shirt. “Wait. Wait. Can you put out the fire on your own? With your powers, I mean.”

Ten frowns. “Of course I can. But it’s faster if you stop the source. Easier.”

Jaemin shakes his head, an idea taking form. “No. You need to show him that you’re like him. Show him that we believe him. Put it out with your own abilities. Now.”

Ten looks like he wants to hit him for giving him a direct command, for acting like his superior. Jaemin shakes him. “We don’t have time, Ten. Do it now!”

“Just fucking hurry up!” Renjun shouts from the door. “This house isn’t going to hold up much longer. This is how he died, by the way. Burning his house and everyone here alive.”

Jaemin throws a frantic, desperate look at Ten. “Please, Ten. Please.”

“Fine.” Ten doesn’t miss the chance to push Jaemin away roughly, like the vengeful and hotheaded creature he is.

He slides in front of the boy, and his movements are slick and graceful when he raises his palms to the walls, murmuring under his breath as the roaring orange flames flicker and fizzle out into cinder, and then, nothing. He blinks, and Jaemin sees his left eye turn entirely white, the colour changing like a paintbrush dipping into a colour palette. A black diamond blooms in the entire, exactly how Doyoung described it.

“I’m like you,” Ten says in Chinese - not in the Henan language, but it’s enough to bring the message home. "I'm like you, we're the same, see?"

Yu Tian sobs, dropping the now flameless torch to the ground. Jaemin rushes forward to catch him, whispering gently into his hair, making soft shushes and inaudible noises as he rocks him.

“Tell me more about the river gods, Ge,” Jaemin asks. “I want to know more about you. My friend knows the fire gods, but I think water is cooler.”

Renjun looks at Ten, and something like awe wells up in both their eyes. Ten gestures to the floor and sits, propping himself against the wall.

“I guess this will take at least another hour,” he murmurs to Renjun.

They watch as Yu Tian hugs Jaemin back, and when the dam of memories of the river gods unfold, Jaemin drinks it all in, his pen flying across pages and pages in the real world.

***

There’s a knock at his door - quiet, but insistent. 

Jaemin’s just come out from the shower, his hair still beaded with cold water, face pink and tingling from the tea tree face wash provided by the guesthouse. 

He crosses over, unlocking the door and pulling the handle. 

Renjun’s face peeks out from the gap. 

“Renjun?” Renjun's eyes are bright and awake when he looks back at him, and he feels his heart start to pick up speed

“I wanted...” He pauses, biting his lip. “I wanted to see if you were okay.”

Jaemin stares. “I’m okay. Really. I mean, the rest of the readings after that first one went smoothly, as you know.”

Renjun nods, but there’s still concern matted on his brow. 

“Really,” Jaemin insists, a little too indignant. 

“Okay. That’s good.”

Renjun is dressed in white pyjamas, so he’d clearly been getting ready for bed. His hair is fluffy from a shower, and Jaemin finds that he wants to run his hands through the strands to see if they’re as soft as they look. But he keeps his hand wrapped around the doorframe.

“Thanks for checking in on me. But I’m fine. You look tired though. You should get some rest. I don’t want to keep you.” He smiles again, but Renjun merely points to the door to be let in.

Jaemin knows he looks confused, but steps back nonetheless, Renjun slipping in through the narrow gap. 

“Entering dreams always takes a toll on the visitor.” He goes to sit on the chaise, sinking into the cushions and taking out his cube, his fingers solving the pattern unconsciously. 

“It’s hard because we’re the intruder. We don’t belong there. We’re not supposed to be there.”

Jaemin brings a pitcher of lemon-infused water to the coffee table along with some rice cakes that Taeil had come by with earlier, since Renjun looks like he means to stay for a bit longer. 

“I know. But it’s what we have to do. I’m used to it. All Archivers are used to it.”

Renjun looks down at his hands. “I’m always amazed at how you’re able to understand them. I don’t think anyone here knows the oracle script better than you, let alone even the Henan dialect. How do you even know that so well?”

Jaemin gives a sheepish smile at the praise. “It’s just pure interest. Really. I’ve always just been interested in Chinese culture.”

“Huh.” His hands tighten around each other. “Ten did well today too.”

Jaemin nods, smiling. “Yes, he was great. I’m beginning to see why Doyoung grouped us the way he did.”

“Mmm.” Renjun makes a non-committal noise. 

Jaemin looks at him. “You’re upset about that?”

Renjun’s eyes fly open, a little slighted. “No, I...I’m as relieved as you are that he was there today. We need a fire-shaman, like what Doyoung said.”

“You really need to stop echoing Doyoung’s words,” Jaemin says as he sits down next to him.

“I don’t…” Renjun stops. “Maybe I do.”

Jaemin smirks. Renjun kicks his ankle, but his little laugh doesn’t reach his eyes.

“What’s wrong? For real?” 

Renjun shuffles the cube in favour of answering, and Jaemin watches his expression tighten and falter, emanating waves of uncertainty. He thinks back to the house on fire, to what Renjun had been doing, to what he had looked like when Ten had calmed the flames.

“Renjun…you’re important too. Without you, Ten wouldn’t have been able to help me.”

He snaps up at that. “I didn’t say I felt unimportant.”

“Then what is it?” Jaemin huffs. “You’re clearly affected by what Ten could do, or you wouldn’t have mentioned anything.”

“I just.” Renjun wrings the cube in his hands and closes his eyes when he speaks. “I just wish I could do the stuff Ten can do. It’s still hard to speak to spirits. I can only do it when another person is already channelling their energies, already in a trance.”

Jaemin struggles to understand. “What do you mean? You aren’t able to…do the intervention thing?”

“Yeah.” Renjun looks down forlornly. “I’m great at walking in on dreams, but the rest of the stuff, not so much.”

Jaemin had never thought that he’d see Renjun without his confidence. Renjun, who looked like he could take them all on in a fight, who could be menacing even from afar, who seemed to have more of a presence than Minhyung, the star pupil.

_Oh Renjun, if only you knew just how valuable you are. If only I could tell you what you really are._

“Renjun, if you hadn’t been there during that sandstorm, I would have died in that memory.” Jaemin takes Renjun’s hand and encases it in his own. His hands are cold as ice, a true mountain shaman.

“I need you. We need you. Doyoung sees that, and so do I. Reading the oracle bones requires more than just the ability to speak with regular spirits. Your role is so much more important. If you weren’t with me, I’d refuse to read them everyday,” Jaemin declares rather strongly. As he says it, he realises that he means every word.

“Nana…” 

“It’s true. You’re needed. Period.” Jaemin thumbs the lightning mark wilfully, because it feels right, because it feels like the only rare moment where Renjun will likely allow him to. 

Renjun flinches, and Jaemin’s hand freezes. The air is deathly still about them, both of them holding their breaths as they watch each other, drawing out the seconds as they decide just how much of their barriers to let down between them, all in that single glance.

Renjun moves first, moving Jaemin’s finger back to the lightning mark.

Jaemin shudders as he traces the thin black lines inked into his skin, and then maps out the outline of his eyes. His finger seems to tingle when it touches the mark. Renjun’s eyes flutter closed at that, and the motion is slow and captivating.

He breathes out shakily, and leans forward bravely to kiss the tattoo. A soft intake of breath follows, and Jaemin can’t help but smile.

“Why lightning?” He says softly, lips still inches from his eye. Doyoung's explanation fills his head, but he wants to hear it from Renjun.

“It appeared, after I accepted the call,” he whispers back. Internally, his stomach swoops.

Jaemin cups his cheek, and kisses his forehead. When he pulls back, Renjun’s eyes are glazed over, in mild shock. 

“Sorry.” Jaemin scoots back. “I’ve kind of been wanting to touch it. But I’ll stop it if you don’t want me to.”

Renjun frowns. “I didn’t say anything like that.”

He touches a hand to his forehead, and Jaemin bites the inside of his cheek. “Sorry, I kissed your forehead on impulse. But I…”

“Why do you keep apologising?”

“I don’t want things to be awkward between us.” Jaemin tries for a smile. “We make a great team, and I don’t want that to be affected by a…by little signs of affection. I…uh…”

Jaemin flounders. It’d been so hard to earn even a smattering of friendship from Renjun, and he might have just blown it.

“So this is just your way of showing affection?” Renjun quirks his brow, and his voice is even, the way it gets when he’s reaching past annoyed to full-blown angry.

“No!” Jaemin sighs, rubbing his face with his hand. “I just…I know you like Minhyung so I just want you to know that I. That I don’t expect anything.”

“What?” Renjun blurts. “You think I’m with Minhyung?”

“Um. I don’t know. Maybe? You’re the only one he talks to, and you’re so different with him, so you know, putting two and two together…”

A giggle escapes Renjun, but he catches it and swallows it down. He moves closer to Jaemin, slipping his fingers through Jaemin’s. “You’re the single most annoying person I’ve ever met,” he whispers. “And that’s saying something, because we have Ten.”

He squeezes their fingers together, and Jaemin squeezes it back just because. 

"You're also the most unexpectedly talented person I've met, shaman or Whisperer or human alike. You don't know how the rest look at you when you're reading the bones, how sure of yourself you are. Hearing you speak in the Henan dialect, watching you write in the oracle script...I never thought that watching an Archiver work could be so beautiful."

“Renjun...”

“If I were with Minhyung, what else would you apologise for?”

Jaemin opens his mouth and closes it.

“I...” He steels himself, seeing the challenge in Renjun's eyes, and the anxiety slowly gives way to a buzzing electric charge, relishing in this new game.

He lifts their joined hands to brush his lips over Renjun’s fingers, those same slender fingers that curl and flip the cube with such deftness. 

“I would apologise for this, for wanting to kiss these fingers. Who knew that you could make solving Rubik’s cubes look so sexy?”

Renjun laughs. “What else?” His eyes glitter with darkness and want. Jaemin thinks that his eyes reflect the same things too. 

“This.” He pulls him into his lap, dipping his fingers under his shirt, finding purchase in the hollows of his spine. “I’d apologise for ruining your perfect attire. Ripping it to shreds. Hiding such smooth skin underneath all these fucking layers.”

Renjun leans down to press his nose into Jaemin’s neck. “Mmm. You _would_ find something like this annoying.”

“It’s suffocating,” Jaemin goes on to elaborate. “You should try out the Archivers’ ones sometime. Lots of breathing space. Very airy.”

“And drown in your robes? Not very sexy.” Renjun cups Jaemin’s neck, bumping their foreheads together. Jaemin leans in, but then he's slinking back teasingly.

“Are you going to kiss me?”

Renjun huffs, hands tugging him closer from where they are around his neck.

Jaemin laughs against his mouth, just a hair’s breadth away. He arranges his face into a thoughtful expression. “Would Minhyung forgive me for this, even if I apologised?”

Renjun growls, pulling on the ends of his hair. “I’m not with Minhyung.”

“Ah. How unfortunate. I was so looking forward to playing the secret lover.”

“ _Nana._ ”

Jaemin laughs again, and he finally, finally pulls Renjun in by the waist and kisses his lips - softly first, as a beautiful memory to keep, and then deeper and more desperate. 

“Nana...” Renjun sighs against his lips, and Jaemin tips his head down so that he can run his tongue over the lightning mark. Renjun gasps. 

He’s never felt this much desire for anyone before, never felt the urge to want to just hold anyone’s hand, to just touch and be touched.

"Is this really okay?" Jaemin breathes into his mouth. "Is it?"

Renjun’s smile is dazzling, and he wants to keep kissing it, over and over. He clings to Renjun, digging his fingers into his tiny waist. “You need to stop being so afraid of your own shadow, Archiver. Ask me to stay,” he whispers feverishly. “Please.”

Jaemin's heart thunders against his chest. "Stay. Please."

Renjun kisses him again, head moving up and down. “I never intended to leave.”

Fuck. He pulls Renjun even closer, and whines into his mouth.

***

Jaemin can’t avoid Jaehyun for another day. 

He’d managed to weasel out of dinner last night, citing the fire shaman event as a reason for feeling drained and needing to rest. But Jaehyun had asked for breakfast this morning, and Jaemin had had to say yes. He'd crawled out of bed with a sinking dread in his chest, half-disappointed to find that Renjun had disappeared, the other side of the bed already cold.

“I thought you might be missing home,” Jaehyun says as he removes the metal closh from the colourful spread of dishes arranged neatly on the coffee table. 

“You got them to prepare a Korean breakfast?” Jaemin’s mouth waters. 

“Yup. I figured it’s about time you got sick of fried bread and mung bean milk and tofu puddings.”

Jaemin points his chopsticks at him. “Don’t forget the millet mush.”

Jaehyun laughs and shivers dramatically. “Those gloopy bastards.”

They both burst into uncontrollable laughter, and as Jaemin looks at the dimples carved deep into his cheeks, he feels a tinge of nostalgia well up. He’s missed this, these easy conversations and banter, without the gulf of hidden lies separating them.

He places his chopsticks down onto the table. “Jaehyun.” 

“Hmm?”

“Why did you lie to me about my powers?”

Jaehyun freezes, chopsticks dangling above the bowl of radishes.

“I heard you, that night after I left Doyoung’s room. I came back to get some papers I left behind and I heard.”

When Jaehyun looks at him, he sees a combination of guilt, apology, and fear. None of them boding good things at all. His chopsticks chime noisily against his plate when he places it down.

“Nana, listen to me. I never knew for sure. It wasn’t something you needed to know. You were never going to be more than a Whisperer, were never going to need to interact with shamans on a level beyond what you were already doing.”

“But you…” Jaemin doesn’t actually know what to say. His head is a mess of words and images and he doesn’t know which one to start with, or how to. 

“You knew Doyoung,” is what he settles with.

“Yes. We grew up in the same neighbourhood. Back when he went by Dongyoung. He was a Whisperer, too.”

Jaemin’s eyes widen. “What?” He whispers.

“Yes. We were both Archivers by then. But we were too young, too new to accompany the Collectors to the caves, so we just helped to copy transcriptions read by the senior Archivers, or serve as second assistants. Doing the shitty administrative work, nothing world-changing or significant. He hated it, so much. It was during one of those times that he started talking about a red mist, and something telling him to come to them. He’d get really bad nightmares, but his understanding of bone whispers improved by leaps and bounds. The Council even began considering him for a work experience trip in Europe.”

Jaemin gulps, remembering his own whisperings and wondering if they really were the same after all.

“You’re thinking about yourself, aren’t you? That’s how I figured out that you might be like that too. The way you blacked out, your nightmares - all that happened to Doyoung too.”

“So he’s…he was a Whisperer? And then he became a shaman?”

“To hide. Yes. His abilities were a bit more obvious than yours. He couldn’t hide behind just being a really great Archiver, because his abilities don’t involve just speaking to spirits. He can sense auras. That’s how he’s managed to take so many talented shamans under his wing.”

Jaemin looks down at his plate. Doyoung must have carried so much on his shoulders. 

“And how come no one else talks about it? I’ve never heard anyone mention Doyoung’s name back at headquarters.”

“Why would they?” Jaehyun says. “It’s considered shameful. To cross over to their side. You would know.”

“Why did you encourage me to go then? To come here, when you knew about my abilities? When you know that we’re not even supposed to touch oracle bones.”

Jaehyun fixes his eyes on him, and they look so conflicted, so broken. “Because I knew you wanted it.”

Jaemin coughs out a dry laugh. 

"It's true. I've always got your back. You know that, Nana. More than anything. "

“I'm not stupid. I think you wanted to see how I would handle myself, or what would happen. You wanted the bones too, but by proxy.”

“I won’t lie, I was curious about the bones. I wanted to see if Doyoung and Taeyong would be able to spot anything. But Nana, you know I -"

"They didn't. Doyoung said so yesterday, didn't he?"

Jaehyun worries his bottom lip between his teeth, like he's warring with himself. "Those two weeks when you were with them in their caves, they probably had some kind of inkling, but they couldn’t grasp anything more than that.” Jaehyun leans forward. “Do you want to know why?”

Jaemin nods slowly. 

“Because I gave you that red jasper belt.”

Jaemin’s mouth drops open. “You wanted me to suppress my abilities.” Jaehyun really was clever. Weaving the stone into his belt so that it would remain unseen, while working its magic. Jaemin doesn’t miss that the stone worked best at the root chakra, which was located at the base of his spine. Too fucking clever.

“Yes. I wanted to test it. And it worked.”

“But what if Doyoung had known and didn’t tell you?”

Jaehyun scoffs. “Doyoung would have found a way to get to you earlier. I know him. You’ve seen how insistent he’s been, now that he knows. Don’t give him too much credit.”

“I don’t really know what to say right now.” The words stumble out. “I don’t…I don’t know that I can trust you.”

“Nana. You didn’t need to know. You were fine not wanting to know. You didn’t want to believe Doyoung at first, did you? You still don’t want to, I know that. And I won't let them take you if you don't want to."

"Alright. For argument's sake, what if I wanted to go?" Doyoung's words playback to him, about how he wouldn't have a choice.

"And never get to be a bone whisperer ever again? I don't think there's any argument there."

Jaemin slams his hands on the table. "Then why did you even let me go this time! When you knew they might find out about me? I don't have any red jasper on me here at all." He's so, so confused.

Jaehyun drops his head into his hands. "Because I saw how much you wanted to go. And I couldn't stop that. I just couldn't."

Jaemin stands quickly before his unshed tears threaten to spill. “Does Taeil know?”

Jaehyun doesn’t answer. Jaemin’s heart jams into his throat, and he thinks that he knows what Doyoung means when he’d said he felt so lost. The pit of his stomach is filled with stones, and his head is fuzzy with a mist of betrayal.

“I don’t know what you want. Any of you. I don’t know what to do. I just…I just need to be alone.”

“Nana, wait.”

“I need to get to the others. We have bones to read.” He pushes his chair out with too much strength until it topples over with a crash.

“Nana!” Jaehyun runs and catches his hand.

The band in his head snaps. “Don’t touch me!” Jaemin screams, flinging his arms out.

_Jaemin. Jaeminnnnnn._

“Shut up! Shutupshutupshutup!” 

The windows and china vases on the mantelpiece shatter. The dishes in the bowls explode and burst from their resting places into a shower of icky food globules. 

Both of them are struck dumb. Jaemin’s chest starts heaving, and he looks down at his hands. 

“Nana....”

Flight takes over, and Jaemin hurtles out of the room, his head spinning. 

_Was that me?_

***

Jaemin doesn’t go to the meeting room. 

Instead, he sprints to Doyoung’s room, vision blurred by the film of tears as he leaps up the stairs two steps at a time. 

“Nana?” 

Jeno is leaning against the bannisters at the third-floor landing, a bunch of papers scrunched tightly in his hand. 

_Oh no, I don’t need this right now._

“Jeno, I’m busy, seriously.” He tries to duck his head low while pushing open the door. 

“Wait, Nana, are you okay? You’re crying.” Jeno touches his arm. 

“Please, Jeno, I just. I can’t talk.”

“Nana...” He blocks his path, pushing the papers into his chest. “Taeil said to get these to you urgently.”

The loose sheets crinkle in his hands. Jaemin casts a blurry peek at one of them. Oracle script, interspaced with Chinese words. 

“What is this?” He breathes out. 

“Um he said something about Youngho copying it down during a trance...”

Jaemin turns white as he forces himself to go over the text properly. The words “red mist” and “rain” and “shadow animals” and “witches” pop out at him. 

“What…what…”

“He said it was important, and that you might understand. What’s wrong?”

Jaemin crunches the sheets into a ball. “Nothing. It’s nothing.” 

He makes to go up the stairs, but Jeno blocks his way again. “I know it’s not nothing. I can help. Let me help.”

Jaemin feels like his head is about to implode, and he's shouting before he can even regret the words spilling from his mouth. “You can’t help. You can’t help at all.” He unfurls the paper balls and thrusts one into Jeno’s face. 

“Can you read this? Do you even know what this says? You can’t. Do you know what a red fog means? No, you don’t. Have you heard people talking in your head? No. So you can’t help. You can’t fucking help me, Jeno.”

_JaeminJaeminJaemin._

The whispers are growing steadily stronger, swooshing around him like a hurricane, with Jaemin at the centre, the eye. It's all too much.

His hands shake and his head feels like it’s on fire. A growl rips through his throat as he puts a hand to his temples. “Fuck.” He bounds up the rest of the stairs and bursts into Doyoung’s room.

Doyoung is, predictably, sitting behind his desk, perfect posture, neat penmanship being scribbled onto a notepad. Jaemin wants to overturn all the furniture, burn it asunder.

“I take it it was you who caused that mess in Jaehyun’s room,” he says, voice pitched softly, and excruciatingly calm.

“Doyoung, what the fuck does this mean?” He slams the creased papers onto his desk in front of him.

“Sit down, Nana.”

He does, body seething, anger coming off him in tidal waves.

“You’re going to keep hearing those whispers,” Doyoung says, capping his pen and slotting it into the pen holder. “You will. Until you let them in.”

“What do you mean, ‘let them in’?

“You’re fighting it, and you’re not supposed to. This is part of you, and you’ll drive yourself crazy if you keep resisting. You will wear yourself out, and you will still lose. Take it from me.”

Jaemin grips the arms of the chair. “You were a Whisperer, before. Couldn’t you have read the oracle bones yourself?”

“You mean to ask me: why couldn’t I have done it myself, and not dragged you into all of this?” Doyoung gets up and struts to the window. He doesn't seem fazed at Jaemin knowing about his past, or if he is, he's put on an excellent mask. “I lost any Whisperer ability when I embraced my new ones.”

“So you mean to say if I say yes to this, I’ll lose my own Whisperer abilities too? No. No fucking way, Doyoung. And tell me what the fuck this means!”

He pounds his fist onto the papers. “Red rain, shadow animals, and witches. This is from an encounter by a shaman in the Qing dynasty. The language used isn’t Shang.”

Doyoung looks at him, his eyes a little sad. “I don’t know that you would lose your abilities too. Nothing’s certain.” 

He tips his chin up to nod at the papers from afar. “And you already know what the writings mean yourself. It’s telling you what I already have been - that we’re not shamans or Whisperers, but something else entirely. Maybe they were called witches at that time, for lack of a proper word. But it still means the same thing. We’re different.”

“Fuck you,” Jaemin says. “Fuck you and fuck everyone here. I’m not doing this anymore. You can take your fucking bones back. I don’t want to have anything to do with you anymore.” 

He turns to leave.

“Jaemin,” Doyoung says, and there’s fear in his voice. “Jaemin, it will control you. You won’t be able to contain it. Look at what you did downstairs. You could have hurt him.”

That does make him stop. It's an effort to harden himself, to carry the mien of the cool, collected Archiver.

“I’m done with your games, Doyoung.”

***

His hiding place is the forest, strangely enough. 

It feels like the most obvious choice, his feet automatically carrying him deep into the trees, shoes crunching softly against the damp grass. 

His legs buckle under him, and he spreads his limbs out, hands pulling on tufts of green. 

He closes his eyes, let’s himself drown in the murmurings of the wind. 

“Nana? Nana!”

He groans at the sound of Renjun’s voice breaking through leaves and branches. He thinks about hiding, but he wouldn’t be quick enough - Renjun’s footfalls are too loud; he’s too near. 

“Nana, where the fuck have you been? We’ve all been waiting for you, and then Jeno comes in crying, telling us you’d left but didn’t take your things.”

Jaemin brings his hand to his eyes, shielding any light and the need to look at Renjun head-on.

“I just want to be alone. Is that so much to ask for?”

“Are you okay?” Renjun crouches down and pulls his arm away, revealing his red-rimmed eyes. He touches a hand to his cheek. “Nana…”

“I’m fine!” Jaemin snatches his hand back and huffs at having to sit up and make conversation. “Please go away.”

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s nothing. It’s just. Everyone’s just been all over me, asking me so many questions, expecting so many fucking things from me, and I’m just fucking tired of it all, okay?” Jaemin shouts back. 

“So you just decide to show up when it suits you, or don’t if you’re having a bad day?” Renjun is angry now, of course he is, all traces of concern vanished.

“Yeah, that’s about right. If I feel like eating or taking a break, I’ll do it. If I feel like showing up, I fucking will. Stop mothering me, and stop asking how I’m feeling. I’m sick of everyone treating me like I’m made of fucking glass, but then pushing me to do everything they want.”

Renjun moves back like he's been slapped. “Well, excuse _me_ for feeling an ounce of concern for you. Fine, l’ll leave you alone. If you collapse or die from some dream-memory here, I’m not going to drag you out.”

“Don’t worry, you won’t have to.”

“Good.”

“Good.”

Renjun yells and does a spin in frustration. Then he’s bending down, bunching up Jaemin’s shirt to yank him closer. 

“You know what your problem is? You’re afraid. You’re afraid that you won’t actually find all 206 human bones out of fucking 40,000 shells here, and you’re afraid of being a failure. And you just take it out on anyone within close range. Look at what you did to Jeno? The poor kid is probably still crying because of you.”

 _JaeminJaeminJaemin._ The red fog descends around them, and he sees the mist curl into a set of claws, wrapping about them. The bird lands on Renjun's shoulder, black eyes winking a warning. Oh god, he needs to get Renjun out of here.

“I’m not afraid of failing.” He pries Renjun’s hand off, twisting it hard.

“Bullshit,” Renjun spits back, hands curling up to wrap around Jaemin’s wrists. He struggles to twist out of Jaemin’s grasp, but Jaemin is much stronger. Years of training as a Collector would do that, from all that manual labour and days spent mining and digging in the tunnels with no sight of sun. 

“Bullshit,” he says again. “You don’t even go by your real names, always hiding behind your heaven-damned monikers. You’re afraid of everything - of leaving a failed legacy, of making a dent in the world. You just bury yourselves underground with your scribblings and recordings. You don’t do anything with the information from the bones.”

Jaemin squeezes his eyes shut. “Renjun, you don’t. You don’t understand.”

“Then help me to!”

“I can’t. I…Renjun, the bones, the whispers, the dreams, all this pressure, it’s too much. I can’t do this anymore.”

Renjun’s eyes soften, and he cups his cheek. “We can do it together. You said we make a great team, right? The best Whisperer and shaman pair.”

Jaemin looks at his face, so eager and so gentle. So preciously innocent. 

_Jaemin, he doesn’t understand us. Why don't we make him?_

He begins to sob.

“I said to leave me alone, please.”

The ground shakes, and Jaemin hears bones rattling around him, giving tiny shrieks at the noise. He clenches his teeth and shakes his head as if to shake them out. 

_“You’re one of them, Jaemin,”_ the whispers say. 

And then: _“You’re one of us.”_ Doyoung’s voice swims into his head next, crystal clear. _“He’s one of us too. See? And we should tell the Jilin boy too. We’ve been lying to him for so long.”_

“Shut up, Doyoung!” He screams, pushing off of Renjun. 

Renjun gawks, eyes fearful for the first time since he’d come here. “Nana, what…Doyoung isn’t here.”

Jaemin stands and punches the bark of the tree behind him, screaming as it tears his skin.

“Nana!” Renjun scrambles to his feet.

“Get out of my head!” Jaemin screams, clawing at his neck now, leaving bloodied scratches in his wake. 

It’s happening again, the lack of oxygen, the circling of endless layers of whispers.

He can feel the rattling of hundreds of bones beneath the ground, all swirling and gathering at the pit, awaiting a command, crying out for his attention. 

If he just dropped his shields, maybe everything would be okay.

 _Yes, Jaemin, yes. Just say yes._ The bird flaps just a few inches away, zipping around his head, goading him.

He wants to lunge at the ghost-bird, grab it by its neck and wring it in his hands until the light goes out in it’s wicked red eyes. _Die_ , he thinks, _why won't you just die?_

“Jaemin!”

Something heavy slams into him, and he drops the bird. He feels himself roll once, twice, and then his back is on the ground, hands cuffed above his head in an iron grip. When he blinks his eyes, he sees that it’s Jaehyun.

“Get the fuck off me, Jaehyun,” he says through clenched teeth.

“Get a hold of yourself! You nearly strangled Renjun!”

“What? I didn’t -” He turns to his left, seeing Renjun hacking roughly, hand rubbing his throat. And then he realises that the bird had tricked him. Oh god.

Fire burns in his veins. 

“I didn’t mean to,” he sobs. “I didn’t, it tricked me, I…”

“Shh, shh,” Jaehyun folds his arms around him. “I know. I’ve got you, I’ve got you.”

“I told you, you need to embrace it,” Doyoung’s voice filters through the stale air.

Jaehyun curls his hands into fists. “Doyoung, I swear - ”

_Doyoung is right. You should listen to him. The Archiver doesn’t understand. He’s holding you back. He didn’t even want you to come here, and then he lied to you. He’s still lying._

Jaemin closes his eyes, tears spilling down his cheeks. He’s so tired. He slips his hand into his pocket, fingering the labradorite stone that he’d woven into a necklace, one of the many crystals he’d brought with him. Maybe if he just...maybe if he just let go, the headaches would stop, the nightmares would end.

The labradorite stone is heavy when he loops it around his neck, a steady weight against his chest. The blue-green-grey colours shimmer as little tremors shift through Jaemin, his energies fighting an internal battle to open his mind to the latent power bubbling beneath his skin.

So powerful, he feels so drunk on their energy.

”Nana?” Jaehyun starts to sweep the tear tracks away from under his eyes. “Come on, let’s get up.”

_You wanted to hurt him, didn’t you? Don’t you want to know what else he’s hiding?”_

Jaemin coughs out another sob. “No. I don’t know. I don’t know anything.” He just wants everything to _stop_.

Jaehyun opens his mouth, speechless, thinking that Jaemin is answering him. Jaemin’s answer seems to plunge the forest into a darker, angrier shade of red, a deep maroon. “Nana, hey...”

And then Jaehyun’s eyes go wide in shock, and he lurches forward into Jaemin’s chest. Blood spills from his mouth, running in thin trickles down his chin, staining his midnight blue shirt darker. 

Jaemin gives a tiny scream, and tries to wipe it off with his thumbs. It’s just light rivulets, but it doesn’t seem to stop. Jaemin panics, swiping even harder against his skin as if that alone could be enough to stop the flow.

“No, no, Jaehyun, please, not him!” Jaemin cries, hands running up and down Jaehyun’s face and arms, distraught at his inability to help.

“Nana,” Jaehyun croaks weakly, and more blood spills. 

Jaemin shakes his head, tears pooling in his eyes. “It’s Jaemin. Jaemin. Jaehyun, look at me, I’m here.”

The red fog rolls out and fills the whole forest, and through the gaps, Jaemin can see that Taeyong is there too, watching on with a hand laced with Doyoung’s. That makes him furious, for some reason.

“You want me? Fine.”

He looks about the forest. Where it had begun, and where it all ends. 

He flicks his eyes to Renjun meaningfully. “Pull me out. You know when.” He hopes that Renjun is able to catch on, however much he appears blindsided by everything that's happening.

Then he closes his eyes and leaps into the red fog, bracing his pendant against his chest.

A lush green forest. Surrounded once again by those trees with the odd symbols, except he knows what they mean now.

He knows how to wield his abilities. He knows exactly what this dream is. And he knows exactly what he needs to do.

“Come out,” he calls loudly, shoulders pushed back arrogantly. “I want to talk. I know now that this was the only way you could reach me. I’m sorry I took so long.”

He reaches out his hand, palm-side up. “I’m here,” he says, in the language of the Shang. 

He traces the word for ‘here’ in the oracle script, something he’d learnt from one of the bones.

The ghost-bird flutters to him, but doesn’t land there. It’s smart, and wise to distrust Jaemin.

_“The midnight moon exposes every bone._

_I open the curtains to watch earth  
hold such pouring silver  
until I forget I'm human._

_The moon lands on my floor  
to reveal my blanched feet.”_

Jaemin sings Youngho’s song, the song he now knows belongs to his people.

“I’m no longer human,” he says slowly, letting the acknowledgement run deep into his bones. “I know I belong here.”

He walks to the tree, placing his palm on the symbol, which is the oracle script symbol of the phoenix - rebirth. He hadn’t made the connection before, because he hadn’t wanted to see it.

“I’m one of you. I see it now.”

The messenger bird flits and lands on his shoulder, chirping into his ear. “Welcome home, Na Jaemin,” it singsongs. 

Jaemin senses some kind of relief sighing through the trees, and he bites back his grin.

Instead he nods deferentially, bending to tie his shoelace. He strokes the bird with his hand, while the other reaches to retrieve the hunting knife hidden in his sock. He fingers the hilt, tightening his grip around it.

“Thank you, Youngho,” he whispers, and drives the knife through the bird’s chest.

Jaemin rises to his feet, eyes flashing angrily at the trees.

“I’m one of you. But you don’t fucking hurt any of my people. This is for Jaehyun and Renjun. And you’d better fucking remember that.”

He thrusts an arm up, and the bark of a tree splits into two. He’s brimming with anger, and he could disintegrate this entire forest if he wanted to.

The trees around him burst into flames, and his throat begins to constrict. It’s fighting back, dealing Jaemin his own back, twofold. Jaemin swings his knife around wildly, clutching the pendant tightly, trying to call on the energy of any bones woven in there for assistance.

But there’s nothing. Because in this forest, They are king. This dream doesn’t belong to Jaemin, isn’t his to control. Fuck.

Jaemin chokes, crashing to his knees as he gasps for air. An icy wind howls through the trees, leaving thin cuts that sting across his cheek, and one particularly nasty one above his eye. He swallows down a yell, but then a gash opens up down the length of his arm and that's when he screams.

_Stupid Jaemin. Stupid stupid Archiver. You shouldn't have done that._

Jaemin smothers another scream by clenching his lips tightly together, grinding his teeth hard. He’s going to die in this dream as retribution, but he wouldn't be Na Jaemin if he didn't go down fighting, no. So he raises his arms, pulling on any shambles of power he can within this dream forest, anything that will answer to him. He might not be the ringmaster here, but he can still perform his tricks. A snap of fire shoots up from the ground, and Jaemin latches on to that, stoking it, growing it, until it leaps up to engulf a row of trees. Jaemin walks to it, etching his own symbol of the sun onto the burning tree with his knife, scratching it over the phoenix.

"We'll burn together," Jaemin whispers, a little crazed, but he doesn't care. But then a cold hand slides onto his shoulder, familiar long fingers comforting. Renjun. Heavens, he'd actually come. Jaemin slides his hand over to clutch at them like a lifeline. He supposes that that’s exactly what Renjun is. His dreamwalker and his bridge between the planes. “Renjun?”

“Come back,” Renjun whispers, and Jaemin hopes that he isn't dreaming when he hears another whisper - softer - saying _come back to me._

He nods, releasing control of the dream-memory to Renjun, and they both dissipate out of the dream plane.

When they’re back in the real world, Jaemin collapses to the ground, boneless. His wounds have disappeared, of course, and when he looks at Jaehyun, the only whisper of any blood spilt is the faint pink stain on his chin, and ruby red droplets on his clothes.

“What the fuck did you just do?” Doyoung pulls him up by his lapels. “I just felt something die.”

“Killed the fucking messenger bird,” Jaemin coughs. 

“How did you know you could do that?” Doyoung demands, irises shaking.

“Easy, Doyoung,” Taeyong murmurs, curling a hand over his and prying him away from Jaemin’s shirt. “He’s just come out of the dream plane. He’s disoriented.”

“Youngho’s notes,” Jaemin whispers, voice croaky like a frog. It’s still raw from earlier. “It said that the bird’s just a messenger, that it just helped to carry the message of our kind, to help us accept our abilities.”

“What notes?” Doyoung frowns.

“The ones I slammed onto your table earlier. He passed them to Taeil to pass to Jeno. They were different people documenting their experiences of being called. I understood the writings, but didn’t piece them together until just now.”

“So it said you could kill the bird?” Doyoung asks, incredulous. 

“No...” Guilt shows in his face. “It just said it was a messenger. And the later sections stated that the red fog was a gateway to entering a dream. And every Whisperer knows that if you die in your dream, you die in the real world. I killed it because I wanted to, because it attacked Jaehyun and Renjun.”

He spies a small smile escape Renjun, and he smiles too.

“I can’t believe you,” Jaehyun whispers. “Trust you to do something as reckless as that.”

“So you arbitrarily took a risk, risked their wrath just to settle some personal grief?" Doyoung says coolly, trembling to keep all his restraint in.

“You know me. Gotta do things my way,” Jaemin murmurs.

“You jeopardised us. They’re probably still angry with you. Who knows what they’ll do now, to you, to any of us!” Doyoung steps forward, hackles raised and on the offensive, but Taeyong slides in quickly, wrapping an arm around his elbow, intertwining their hands. When his sleeve rides up, Jaemin can see a crescent moon printed on his left wrist, facing rightwards. A twin to Doyoung's.

“You said yes to them, didn’t you?" Taeyong reaches up, thumb brushing the underside of his left eye. "A sun. How fitting."

Jaemin puts his hand to his face, tracing over where Taeyong had touched, noting that the mark mirrors the position on Renjun's face.

"Your aura is different. More silver," Doyoung says. "You need to come with us to Wolseongbong now. It’s the only place where you’ll be safe and where we can figure out what to do. The Whisperers cannot help you now.”

Jaemin looks up, eyes world-weary. This hadn’t been the end, only the beginning. “Only if Jaehyun comes with us to Wolseongbong.”

It's a childish wish, but then, weren't all hopeless dreams?

Jaehyun shakes his head regretfully, expectedly. “Jaemin,” he says, and Jaemin hadn’t known how wonderful it would sound to hear his real name being uttered again. “I’m not like you. I don’t belong with you.”

Jaemin catches his hand. “But Jaehyun…”

Jaehyun looks down. “I’m an Archiver. I need to do my job, and you need to do yours. It’s how it is.”

“No,” Jaemin shakes his head. “No, I refuse to go. I won’t.”

“Jaemin,” Taeyong moves over and takes his hand in his. “Jaehyun is right. He needs to be where he’s needed, and that’s with the Archivers. We have different paths." He looks back to Doyoung, nodding his head, like he's also come to his own acceptance. "And very soon, we...we will need to prepare to leave Wolseongbong too, because we’re not...shamans.”

A new set of tears fills his eyes. When he looks at Taeyong, he sees that he's holding in his own tears too.

“You can’t always have your way, Jaemin-ah,” Jaehyun murmurs, smoothening a hand over his head. “You have a new family with you now. I think that counts for a lot. And I’ll still visit you, wherever you go. Doyoung will keep me abreast. He always has.”

Defiance curls tight in his belly, a default reaction to authority. Jaemin shifts his eyes to Doyoung, expression back to its usual impassivity. He nods once, dark hair gleaming against his pale clothes, and Jaemin remembers how warm his touch had been, how much he’d wanted to submit. He hates this, this non-choice.

Because in the end, he only ever had this path to take.

“Okay.” He breathes, hanging his head in defeat. “Okay.”

***

“Hey.”

Jaemin looks up. “Hey.” 

He reaches out a hand, which Renjun gladly takes with a fond smile painted on his lips. In his other hand sits the black cube, metallic sides glinting in the sunlight.

“Ready to go?”

Jaemin surveys the guest room that he’s called home for the past few weeks. A bit of homesickness creeps up on him.

“Don’t tell me you’re actually going to miss this place.”

“Not really.” Jaemin stands to face Renjun. “My home used to be wherever Jaehyun was. And now, my home is wherever you are. If you said you weren’t going to Wolseongbong, I wouldn’t have gone either.”

Renjun steps forward, pocketing his cube so that he can take both of Jaemin’s hands in his own. “Your family isn’t just made up of me and Jaehyun, you know.”

Jaemin bumps his forehead against his. “I can’t do this without you. _I won't._ It doesn’t matter if there are others like us. I’ll always need you,” he says, speaking it with such ardent truthfulness that he hopes that Renjun will see just how much he means it.

“You’re being dramatic.” But his bone-crushing hug says otherwise.

Renjun looks up at him, hands winding up to curl around Jaemin's neck. "Are you going to say goodbye to Jeno?"

Jaemin grimaces. "I...heard he's going back to Wolseongbong with you guys, so I think I'll talk to him then. I don't feel like facing him now." Heavens, he'd been so horrible to him, and again, he's reminded of how horrible as his last words had been to Lucas and Xiaojun. And now he would be leaving both of them forever. How had everything become so hard?

"He'll understand," Renjun rubs his nape, eyes full of affection and comfort. "He'll be upset, but he'll still listen."

"Renjun, I..."

“Wagon’s waiting,” Jaehyun calls, knuckle hitting the door lightly.

Jaemin pushes his forehead against Renjun’s, holding it there for a moment longer before he disentangles himself from him. “You saved me,” he whispers.

Renjun smiles, pushing against his forehead, swallowing hard. He touches the sun mark under his eye, and Jaemin closes his eyes, savouring the coolness of his fingers against his skin. “Don’t read any more bones until I see you. I mean it.”

Jaemin chuckles. “I won’t. I promise.” He starts to turn, making for the door.

“Jaemin, wait.” 

His heart leaps at how lovely it is when Renjun says his name. So much better than Nana. 

Renjun pushes the cube into his hand. “Take this with you.”

“Renjun, I can’t, you need this.”

Renjun shakes his head, stopping him with a deep kiss. “Don’t lose it, Archiver.”

Jaemin sighs against his lips, and slips his hematite ring off his finger to slide onto Renjun’s index finger. One of his most treasured grounding pieces. “Then take this. And don’t you dare lose it either. I wore this when I first touched the oracle bones.”

Renjun laughs and kisses him again, this last one sweet and more chaste, uncaring that Jaehyun is standing at the door watching. 

Jaemin steps back, ears flaming red. He picks up his luggage and nods to Jaehyun. “I’m ready.”

He’ll be travelling back to the Archivers with Jaehyun first to declare his move and remove his name from the family registrar, as is custom. And then…onward to Wolseongbong, with the rest of them. Doyoung would be leading them all back there - Renjun, Youngho, Ten, Donghyuck, and the others. He’d sent them directives immediately after the events in the forest. 

“I’m glad you have Renjun,” Jaehyun says once they’re safely tucked inside the vehicle, the wagon rolling gently down the valley. “He’s good for you.”

Jaemin nods. “I got lucky.” 

He turns to Jaehyun. “You still have time to change your mind, you know.”

Useless hope, again, because Jaehyun has always made his thoughts about this subject abundantly clear. 

Jaehyun throws back his head to laugh. “No, I don’t. Cool tatt, by the way.” He nods at Jaemin's sun, and it must be some kind of joke, how Jaemin will always have this reminder of the Archivers permanently marked on him, no matter where he goes, no matter what or who he becomes.

His eyes look wet when his laughter subsides. “Doyoung did offer me an honorary stay, but he can only extend that offer once.”

Jaemin sits up. “Then why aren’t you taking him up on it?” He demands.

Jaehyun shakes his head, twirling his fluorite pendant in his fingers. His eyes seem to dance with a secret when he answers. “I’ll collect on it, when the time is right.”

Jaemin rolls his eyes. “You two are really so alike. You and Doyoung. It’s kind of scary.”

“Mmm. We were inseparable, back in Seoul. We were like two sides of the same coin, kind of like the moon to my sun, you know? Before everything. Before Taeyong.”

Jaemin wants to ask him more about that, but something about the sadness in his expression makes him hold his tongue. 

“You were right, you know,” Jaehyun whispers, focusing his eyes straight ahead. Jaemin notices that he's fingering his fluorite pendant. “Some sacrifices are to our own ruin.”

He sees Jaehyun look at him, with a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. Jaemin shakes his head vehemently. “You were right too. Some sacrifices are worth it.”

Jaehyun smiles ruefully, choosing not to argue. He settles back into the seat, closing his eyes to while away the long journey home. “Of course I’m right. You have a long ways to go yet before you know all the secrets of the world, Na Jaemin.”

Jaemin is too busy looking at the sun lightening the sky with a light apricot to notice Jaehyun’s eyes sparkling a brilliant gold.

He grips his own pendant around his neck, singing Youngho’s song under his breath unconsciously as he thinks about the sun giving way to the moon, and what awaits him in the silvery mountains of Wolseongbong, and after.

**Author's Note:**

> If you got all the way to the end, I think I would already be quite, quite grateful to you, because this turned out way longer than I intended it to. I loved delving into ancient Chinese history while writing this, so I have my lovely secret santee to thank for for allowing me to churn this out of my head and into something tangible ~
> 
> Come talk to me in the comments or on twt after reveals:)
> 
> Other notes:
> 
> Reference to what the oracle bone script looks like: [here](https://omniglot.com/chinese/jiaguwen.htm)
> 
> The song that Youngho sings is actually a poem called [White Moon](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/aug/22/chinese.poetry) by Wang Xiaoni, a poet from Jilin (thought it'd be cool to reference something originating from Jilin, since it's Renjun's hometown and Youngho pointed to him when he was saying it. I only used bits and pieces of the poem that I thought suited the oracle bones.)
> 
> Summary of the meanings of the crystals that Jaemin used throughout (link [here](https://meanings.crystalsandjewelry.com/a-to-z-list-of-crystal-meanings/)):  
> \- Black tourmaline (what he was wearing the first time he encountered the bird): Is a common meditation crystal, and has protective qualities. Also a powerful grounding stone  
> \- Amethyst (what he was weaving into the bone necklaces): For calm and tranquility  
> \- Hematite (what he wore when he first touched the bones): Grounds the individual, and reinforces the physical body/stamina  
> \- Clear Quartz (pendant gifted by Jaehyun): Enhances clarity of mind  
> \- Malachite (what Jaemin wore to the Yin ruins): Balances the heart chakra, and helps in matters related to journeys of the heart (in this case, it was Jaemin choosing his heart over his head to go to Yin/Anyang/Henan)  
> \- Fluorite (pendant gifted by Jaemin to Jaehyun): Relieves stress and anxiety, and aids in meditation  
> \- Red Jasper (stone woven into a belt that Jaehyun had Jaemin wear to the Gwangju caves): Roots one to the physical world  
> \- Labradorite (worn by Jaemin at the forest when he finally embraced his added abilities): Amplifies psychic energies and spiritual connectedness


End file.
